Bad Faith
by ACE2
Summary: Set around 2010 in Muggle London, a chance encounter between Draco Malfoy and the infamous Harry Potter is on a collision course to disaster in a gritty, noiresque adventure into a crime-ridden London and the troubled politics of France.
1. Uneasy Gratitude

**Title:** Bad Faith (01/?)  
**Author name:** Ace  
**Author email:** elel88_2000@hotmail.com  
**Category:** Action/Adventure  
**Sub Category:** Drama  
**Keywords:** london muggle crime futurefic  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** Set around or before 2010 in Muggle London, a chance encounter between Draco Malfoy and the infamous Harry Potter is on a collision course to disaster. Everything bad you can think of in excess, fraud, deception, generous throwing about of money...  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** I try to reply to all reviews on the review board to be sure to check back.  
  
Also, take note that this chapter has been edited for plot holes and the like.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**BAD FAITH**

**Chapter One : Uneasy Gratitude**

It was a miserably wet London afternoon, damp and dank, and the sidewalks were covered in salty slush. Harry breathed in the soot and air that smelled of cheap fried foods, before wrapping his coat around him tighter and sinking deep into the scarlet warm folds of his scarf.

He had grown accustomed to wearing sunglasses no matter how dark it was outside, in order to avoid suspicion. He saw his picture in the papers with dark, heavy warnings printed below it far too often, and his eyes were unique enough to warrant a second look. Through them, he could see the wet brick and brownstone boxes rising from the street, decorated with a scattering of gargoyles and long lamplights that threw funny shadows.

A light snow was falling. Harry wished it would stick for once into that gloriously white layer but as soon as it hit the pavement, it melted into slush. He watched a few snowflakes fall onto his dark coat. It was warm and expensive (that sort of thing seemed to come in pairs) not that Harry would have known or cared. This little item had been filched out of a boutique in Knightsbridge. He enjoyed strolling through the lingerie shops but that had grown tiresome after a while and the coats on the rack at Connolly's had looked rather tempting.

He could easily have removed the security tag but had wanted to have some fun. He had strolled out of the shop, the buzzing of the alarm leaving a pleasant ring in his ears. It was a petty thing to do since he could easily have afforded to buy all the clothing in the store but a cheap thrill was necessary, every once in a while.

There was a tramp on the street, huddled up into a ragged little ball. Harry took some change out of his pocket. The Christmas spirit could kiss Harry Potter's arse but occasionally he felt the need to repent for his sins. The priest would die of old age before he finished listing them, anyway. Maybe it was the slush, or the fog, or the coat he had got away with, but he made his charitable donation of the year. He leaned over and tapped the tramp on the shoulder. The head rose up from its fetal position like a long necked turtle.

The man's face was unshaven and smudged with grime. There was a tired, resigned look on his face, as if he was being forced into an arranged marriage. His face was made up of a few clean lines, the quick strokes of his jaw and the set of his mouth. The hair was thrown about in salty stiff shocks of blonde, some of its length tucked into the collar of his clothing.

"All right?" Harry started. "Merry Chris-" he stopped mid-meaningless phrase.

He had seen those eyes somewhere. They had once been cold and arrogant and gray as the winter sky. _It couldn't be._

The hand in his pocket fingering his change went limp. Everything told him it was impossible, completely impossible. He was imagining this.

But his mouth seemed to open and speak of its own accord. "Draco Malfoy?"

The gray eyes automatically registered an instinctive animal fear that all creatures drew on, if nothing else - the one emotion that all beings shared. "Who the fuck are _you_? Look, I didn't do anything. He made all those crackpot stories up. You have to believe me." There was a desperate whine in his voice, and he wore a helpless look that his face was not made for. Had never been made for.

***

The chip shop was warm, if greasy like all the rest. The walls were decorated with cheap tinsel and plastic Santas and the tables were cracked. Draco stared carefully at the plate in front of him before savagely spearing a potato.

"So," Harry feinted. "How've you been?" He had opted for coffee instead. He loosened his muffler.

"Shit, you?"

Harry did not answer. He studied Draco carefully, running his gaze up the fine line of his jawbone covered in stubble, the cheekbones so sharp they looked like they would cut through his skin, the fine white arches of his eyebrows. His hair was greasy, dirty and in oddly placed strands, reeking of onions and sweat. Draco shifted uncomfortably. He seemed to have lost the arrogance in his speech and some of the Malfoy confidence but he still had his trademark drawl (somewhat polluted with the hint of Cockney in his accent) and the defiant sharp glint in his eyes.

The smell of vinegar and salt was making Harry salivate. He went up to the counter and his knees felt weak. He rested his elbows on the countertop, where there was a matronly woman with hard blue eyes wiping the formica clean with a pink washrag.

"Wot would ya loike, dear?" She looked up from her work. He could taste the vinegar already. He felt faint.

"Another order of fish and chips."

_I'd forgotten how good this stuff is_, he thought, munching his food and washing it down with his drink. The coffee was abandoned while he and Draco settled into a neutral silence. Harry's mind went blank on what to say, nothing was graceful enough for the thoughts he was thinking and the questions he had bottled up. Realizing it must be difficult to be in Draco's position, the champion liar for once was quiet.

"How've you been?" said Draco through a mouthful of fish, choking slightly. He was shoveling down the food in staccato bursts of a world-class eater. Specks of pinkish gray splattered the table. "Sorfy," he mumbled.

"Not too bad, really. Where are you staying?"

"Oh, you know, here and thereabouts." Draco made vague motions with his hands, punctuated with swallowing sounds.

Harry drained the rest of his bitter. He felt much better and cheered up somewhat, even though Christmas decorations usually irritated him and he had urges to deck the perverts in Santa suits. He studied Draco's clothing carefully, noting the stains and tears. The Draco he had known was immaculate, precise. The Draco he had known was calculated with all the Slytherin cunning of 7 years in a boy's body. He had never questioned it or tried to change him, it was as much a part of Draco as Voldemort was part of Harry.

And now Draco was here again, within touching distance, footsy distance, groping distance for fuck's sake. Draco was here in a tattered jumper that vaguely resembled a chewed up Molly Weasley original, and his once eerily perfect hair (which had still managed to look perfect in its imperfection after coked up encounters) was long and shaggy.

"What have you been doing since..." Harry didn't want to finish the sentence.

Draco shrugged. He had finished the last few crumbs and the last drops of his meal. He began to look shifty again, his foot hitting the chair legs as he swung it back and forth. "Odd jobs and such. Still got my wand." He grinned wolfishly, a lean and hungry smile he had obtained from hard living. "What's the fabulous Mr. Potter been up to?"

"Business."

"What sort of business?"

"I do some dealing here and thereabouts." He mimicked Draco's gestures.

Draco decided to drop it.

"Look, why don't we go to my flat for the evening to catch up some more?"

"Dinner?"

"Peanut butter and mango sandwiches. But we can order out for Chinese if you like."

"Say no more."

***

Somebody was prodding her.

"Ermph," she said sleepily. She was in a field of wildflowers, wearing a gingham frock and skipping lightly through the grass.

"Ms. Granger, wake up." Somebody was shaking her shoulder with a quiet urgency. Her eyelids cracked open a fraction of an inch. There was a soft gold-green light shining (sadly, not the sun beaming down on her daisies and dandelions) - the emerald desk lamp Niall had given her for her birthday. Along with Tiffany diamond earrings.

"Shit," she swore softly. The fuzzy numbers on the clock swam into view. They couldn't be right, they simply couldn't. She checked her watch and shook it. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"I didn't want to wake you up but I knew the report was due..." said Neville apologetically.

_You really shouldn't have woken me up_. Would Niall understand? It wasn't as if this was the first time she had stood him up. She felt a migraine setting in, a harsh buzzing in her ears. Hermione rubbed her temples clockwise. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Coffee was no longer helping her much due to the huge amounts she already drank like youth elixir.

"Open the blinks- I mean blinds," she croaked. Neville did so, twisting the metal rod with his palms. She got up out of the chair. It creaked, the unoiled mechanism groaning. She liked the chair; its cracked red faux-leather seat reminded her of different days.

It was black outside. The dark clouds smothered any starlight that might have been seen and a howling wind ripped through the street signs and occasional tree. The windowpane shuddered as Hermione leaned her head against the cool glass. One fingertip lazily traced circles on the window. How different it was outside. How free.

"Ms. Granger?" Neville coughed nervously. "Did you finish the report?"

"Fuck the report."

"Excuse me?"

"Is there a Time Turner around?"

Hermione had turned around. The color had come back into her cheeks like expertly applied rouge and the imprint of her sleeve on her cheek was fading like yesterday's memories. Even with her hair frizzing up at the ends and her eyes pink-rimmed with fatigue, she looked oddly vibrant and triumphant with a few loose strands flying about her face.

"A Time Turner? They're in a safety deposit box, number 54, I believe. But you need a few small forests of release papers to-"

"Get me one."

There was a pause. "Er-"

In a few quick strides, Hermione was standing very close to him. He could see the silver cogs and wheels turning behind her eyes and smell the black coffee on her breath and oozing out of her pores as she breathed in rapid-fire bursts. She pushed a strand of hair impatiently out of her eyes. Neville stared, transfixed.

"Do. Anything. Just. Get. Me. One."

He nodded dumbly, later wondering what lapse of sanity had caused him to do so.

Hermione burst into a smile. She started laughing, spinning on the heels of her pumps. "Really?" Her eyes were sparkling as if he had just told her a good joke and she was on her second glass of champagne. But coffee was Hermione's hard liquor, and it was Neville's job to supply the addict with whatever she needed. And what she needed was caffeine. Gallons and gallons of it.

Hermione dropped onto her seat, spinning freely around on the chair. It made a predictable _creak, creak_ sound. She placed her elbows on top of a stack of papers.

"You must think there's something wrong with me."

Neville shook his head. _You might find her occasional moods a little odd,_ a gossipy assistant had told him. _Just be quiet and ride them out._ He shook his head again. It was a programmed reaction. He scuttled away to procure the Time Turner, already thinking of looking a new job over his raspberry Danish and herbal tea the next morning.

Half an hour later, Neville had filled in the forms (albeit, messily) and was standing in front of a green box that resembled a filing cabinet with the number "54" inscribed on its surface. He attempted a number of spells.

"_Alohomora_." He pulled on the handle. It didn't budge.

"_Antomara_." It was a breaking-in spell of Hermione's own invention, one for more difficult locks and a thousand times trickier to perform.

"Got it open yet, Neville?" She had appeared noiselessly and seemingly out of nowhere. Most wizards Apparating announced their entrance with a small _pop_ like an opening of a Coke bottle.

She pointed her wand at the lock and closed her eyes. Her brow furrowed up in concentration. "Antomara," she said quietly and the door swung open. Neville was hardly surprised. He took out a miniature hourglass on a fine golden chain. Hermione snatched it from him. He had a bad feeling about this.

"Careful, Hermione," he warned, dropping his formal front for once. But he found himself just speaking to the wall. She was gone as noiselessly as she had appeared.

***

There were little white cartons that had once held their dinner littered around the room. Draco burped appreciatively.

"How do you eat so much?"

He shrugged, a gesture he had taken a liking to. "When you don't eat very often and most of your meals a rat wouldn't touch, you learn to take it as it comes." He looked at the leather sofa he was sitting on, seeming to notice it for the first time. "Bloody posh flat you've got here, Potter."

"Thanks." And then he added, through no anticipation on his own part, "You can stay for a while if you like."

Draco sat up. In the firelight Harry had conjured up so effortlessly, he could see something like surprise and hope on Draco's face. It softened his features. "Really?"

"Yeah, we'll go shopping for some decent clothes for you. No one in my flat wears dirty knickers." It was Harry's weakest attempt at a joke thus far, but it didn't seem to matter.

"Thanks." Draco flopped back onto the couch. He wasn't sure how to express all the things he was thinking but Harry seemed to understand. He always did.

"Wait until you see what you have to do to earn your keep here, though, you might not want to stay."

"What? Be your sex slave?" Draco smiled at his own joke. Harry hit him over the head with a maroon cushion that shed feathers on him.

"I'll tell you in the morning."

"...after I have ravaged you..."

"Tart."

Draco shrugged again. He looked like an old rag doll, but even through that, there was something distinctly _Draco_ about him - the slight curl of his lip or the way he raised his eyebrow 2.7 degrees when making a joke. Harry used to call him Snowman because he was always so pale, but his face was even bonier than before (if such a thing was possible) and he had a ruddier complexion accompanied by a hungry, starved look, as if there was a large cut of meat hanging in front of him that he couldn't quite reach.

There was a half empty bottle of scotch on the mahogany coffee table. Draco poured himself another glass. Harry noticed his hand shaking. Draco had never been able to hold his drinks for all his boasting, Harry remembered. He felt relaxed now, a rarity.

"So, Malfoy, what have you been doing since Hogwarts?"

With their tongues loosened and their shoes off, Draco settled into a wobbly narrative account.

"Well, Lucius and Narcissa were under Crucio for a bit too long and they're in St. Mungo's now." Draco waved away the sympathetic noises Harry should have been making, not seeming to notice that he wasn't making them. "And on account of them being Death Eaters, those fucking Ministry wankers decided to seize all our money and properties to help pay off their shitload of legal fees from all the wizarding families that were suing them, and to pay off the other victims to keep _them_ from suing," said Draco bitterly.

"So ol' Malfoy Manor is overrun with Ministry pinheads shagging penny whores against the marble statues, claiming to be conducting 'official Ministry business'. As for me, no one seemed to want to hire a Death Eater's son that those Auror sonofabitches hadn't managed to lock up in Azkaban. Got a lot of doors slammed in my face." Draco drained the last of his scotch and poured himself another half glass.

"So, I did some errand work for Big Bads who wouldn't have cared if I had three dicks and the rap sheet of Voldemort. Delivering bodies, shredding documents, the usual shit. Paid okay, enough to rent a rat infested flat in Camden, to get hopped up on acid and hash once in a blue moon and to get good and plastered every once in a while."

His words were slurring. The flickering firelight played across his features and Harry waited for him to continue.

"Soon they figured out I knew a few tricks. I could still do some magic with my wand, remember. So I started to move up in the world, did a few Crucios and some Imperios. That was their favorite - I made some blokes do an Irish jig or two for their amusement and it kept them happy. I thought I was getting pretty valuable."

Draco's face darkened at the memory, as his fingers traced the scars on his cheek and his ribs seemed to draw in from the remembered pain. "Well, things didn't work out too well with the assistant pillock, a shifty little weed with five bodyguards even during sex. Not that he got much."

Draco lit up a cigarette with some difficulty (Mayfairs, Harry noticed, a brand he wouldn't have touched) and took a deep drag, then calmed somewhat. "He ran to the Head, made up a few stories, and the next thing I knew, I had a team of hitmen after my skinny arse. Almost got me, too. I managed to work enough magic to get myself out of that tight spot before they blew my brains out and had my testicles for lunch." Draco took another deep drag, blowing smoke at the ceiling in a blue-gray nicotine stream. He was silent for a few moments.

"And then I found you?" Harry prompted. Draco cocked his head to one side and squinted, trying to focus on Harry's face. _He used to be so readable,_ thought Draco sadly. _Was bloody horrible at poker. I could have drowned somebody with the Galleons I won off him. _Harry's face was like a mask, even with his bloody sunglasses off. _Silly things, why does he wear them?_

"Not quite. I slept in a few parks during the summer and when the cold nights on the street hit, I found a shelter or two, ate stale bread and watered down soup. Did a little begging when I could be arsed, along with some pick pocketing. You'd never guess what people keep in their purses. I sometimes got more than five quid for my efforts. Every fucking person's got credit cards nowadays, I'm not stupid enough to use those." Draco sighed. He held his hand in front of his face, watching the long trails of pluming color. It was the last thing he remembered before passing out into a blissfully empty black.

***

It was late morning when Draco woke up to the worst hangover since Tony Blair had been elected. Last night's events were giant, vague ideas that were floating away from him into an alcohol abyss. He felt like somebody was squeezing his temples with a vise and his jumper was crusty with vomit. He groaned, wondering how many drinks he'd had. Harry was nowhere to be seen, just a dent on the seat cushion. There was a biting chill in the air and the cinders were dead gray.

Draco staggered up. "Bloody fucking hell," he said hoarsely, rubbing his temples and wishing for a cold compress. What time was it? He pulled himself toward the window drapes, opening them a fraction of an inch before snapping them shut. The sun was blinding and he automatically raised one filthy arm to his eyes.

"G'morning," said Harry.

Draco turned around. He did it too quickly and the world spun out of control again, as nausea rose up his throat in sour lurches. Harry had those goddamned sunglasses on again. Draco squinted, trying to readjust his eyes to the dim light.

"Just wake up?"

"No shit, Sherlock."

Harry yawned, raising his arms above his head and pulling his hands down his face. He was already dressed in a designer tracksuit and trainers. Judging from his flushed face and the glistening sweat that clung to his nose and forehead, Draco would have said Harry had just gone jogging.

"Wait a sec," said Harry, disappearing for a few moments. Draco heard a door slide open and the jingle of clothes hangers. Harry returned with a bundle of white cotton in his hands. "Take off your jumper," he commanded brusquely before tossing the bundle to Draco, who caught it with a great deal of fumbling. He pulled his top off and poked his head through the neck of the shirt. It reminded him of spring breezes and the hum of warm dryers.

"_Incendium,_" Harry pointed his wand at the grubby wool heap on the Oriental carpet. It went up in flames and burned in a contained fire, the flames eating and licking away at it until all that was left was gray ash.

"Hey!" yelped Draco with a rather indignant look on his face. "That was my only jumper!"

"I can tell."

"But- but-" he spluttered. "My jumper!"

Harry sighed. "Look, if you liked it that much we'll stop at a charity shop on our way to Compton."

"Compton?"

"Mmm. For clothing. Knickers. Novelty leather items. Remember last night? Never mind, you were probably too pissed to remember your own name."

"I was not!" Draco sighed in defeat. "Alright, I was."

"Bloody right you were. I have to run a few errands first. Care to tag along?"

"I'm game. Could you bung me a jacket, if it's not too much trouble?" Harry disappeared again, and came back even quicker than before.

"Wear this - it's cold outside." Draco wasn't sure why he was being treated so kindly but he took things as they came and didn't question people's motives. That was his philosophy. The jacket was a little worn, but excellently cut, and it smelled like Harry, a scent that sent little shocks of delight through him, piercing through the hangover like breaths of air to a drowning man. He had memorized this smell like the fading photographs shoved in his trouser pocket. Like Menthols and soap and old leather. There was something else too, like - no, it couldn't be.

"You really need a fix, don't you." It was more of a statement than a question.

Draco looked up. Harry had pulled his own jacket on, a leather one that could easily have concealed a number of unsavory things. Harry smiled nastily at the color rising in Draco's cheeks. "No need to be embarrassed." Harry jerked his chin in the direction of the door. "Come on, we're taking the lift." _Fuck, he needed a smoke._

A woman in a cashmere sweater with long, varnished fingernails was outside, holding a bag of groceries. "Hey, John!" she cried, smiling widely.

"All right, Victoria?" Harry replied. Draco turned to Harry with a questioning look. John? What the bloody hell was going on? Harry just gave him a silencing glare. Victoria, more astute than appearances gave away, said, "What's wrong? Who's your friend?"

Harry morphed into Mr. Gracious. "So sorry, this is Draco, an old mate from Eton. Draco, this is Victoria, who lives across the hall." Victoria rebalanced her bag to one side and shook his hand quickly, with a funny look on her face. There was a flash of recognition, confusion.

"Ladies first," Harry said. Victoria looked uneasy. She smacked her forehead in an almost convincing gesture and nearly dropped her groceries, the loaf of bread teetering dangerously on a carpeted precipice.

"Oh, stupid me. I left my- er- keys in the car."

"Need any help getting them out?"

"No- no. That's okay. Bye, John."

As she turned around, Draco noticed her keys hanging from a cord firmly knotted to a loop on her skirt. He looked at them for a moment and then turned to Harry, stony faced.

"I don't think she likes me."

"Women take great stock in cleanliness. After we get you washed up, trim that hair, and drape you in Gucci, she'll be all over you like your very own lap dancer. You'll clean up well." He said this with some conviction.

"Thanks. I think." Draco's pride was substantially smaller after having had to beg during the hard spots. _Oh look at the poor tramp, Lucy. Slip him some change... I don't want to touch the dirty old man... Don't be cruel, Lucy. He can't help it if he's poor. _Kindness, no matter how forced or filled with disgust, was the only reason he was able to make it. _Swallow your pride._ But pride tasted so bitter going down.

The ride in the lift didn't sit well with him. Even with the minimal motion, he feared he would leave a regurgitated stamp on the marble floor.

***

As they drove on, the buildings seemed to grow more and more dilapidated until it seemed a heavy footstep would crumble them. The road grew warped and cracked and the pubs seedier looking. The sky overhead was still densely cloudy, a mustard gray like refrigerator remains. The wheels on the road beneath made a warm whir and the crunch of gravel underfoot. Draco had frequented this area in his criminal days, he remembered nervously. What were they doing here now?

Harry slowed down to a crawl, scanning the crowded buildings for something. A group of hard looking boys were trailing the car. Harry stopped in front of a club with The Grind in neon letters hanging above its door. The "d" was broken, so it read "The Grin". In its window, Draco could see what looked like red and blue stroll lights and another sign proclaiming "ALL TOPLESS ALL THE TIME" and from the open car window could hear an ancient 80s synth pop number playing.

In the rearview mirror, Draco saw the boys stop behind the car, the leader appraising it carefully. The group leader was a wiry looking bloke with blue inked tattoos covering both arms, his knuckles callused and scarred. He wore a tattered vest even in the winter air. Draco could see the gooseflesh covering the exposed skin from a good six feet away.

Harry opened the door and Draco followed suit. He stepped out onto the damp gravel, still feeling wobbly. He needed a meal. The tattooed leader slouched over to Harry and gave him what he thought was a menacing sneer. "Hey, big britches, nice wheels you got there, I wouldn't leave it around unprotected if you catch my drift."

From inside the car, the boy had looked lean and tough, someone to avoid when you had a car the price of a Caribbean island at stake. But standing in front of Harry, Harry easily beat him in height by a head and a half. He looked so young and vulnerable, like a sheep facing down the big bad wolf. And it was apparent that Harry's lack of reaction was unnerving him. He was used to some sort of expression - fear, annoyance, reaching into a bag for Mace. With the feeling that the power balance was grossly unfair, the boy carried on foolishly.

"My gang and I could watch your car," he offered, "for a price." There was still no reaction on Harry's part. Harry was biding his time carefully, waiting for the right moment to speak. The boy's eyes narrowed and the tendons in his arms stood out like embedded electrical wires waiting to short circuit. Losing his cool, he poked Harry in the chest with his index finger. "Look here, you fucking overpaid arse, I could take apart your car in 30 seconds flat. How would you like that?"

"Mmm," said Harry, noncommittally. The boy's gang reluctantly gathered around him in a loose circle. Feeling that he'd won somehow, the boy grew cockier.

Draco, meanwhile, was watching from under the overhang of The Grind with a terrible sort of fascination.

Harry was standing there, tall and groomed. Even with Harry's ubiquitous sunglasses, Draco could almost see the cold amusement in his eyes. "Now, let's not do anything rash," he drawled, an impressive imitation of the old Draco Malfoy. With a strangled cry, the boy jumped on Harry, his fists flying. He caught Harry square on the jaw and his left hand swung at his nose, as he bit and spat and kicked.

Harry caught the boy's wrist (his right hand held a jagged switchblade produced from his trousers) and tackled the boy to the ground. He quickly kneed Harry in the groin. Draco winced inwardly.

The leader took the opportunity to escape from his grasp but Harry recovered quickly, grabbing one ankle and pressing on the knee on the same leg.

The boy hit the pavement with a gasp. Harry straddled him and with a painfully efficient twist of the wrist, the switchblade clattered harmlessly to the ground. Harry rolled around so the boy was lying on his stomach, grabbed the boy's right arm and twisted it in a full rotation. The boy screamed, his arm breaking with a satisfying sound like a splintering stick.

His friends scuttled off into the Tarot parlor next door.

Harry smiled. It had a full measure of loathing. "Fool," he spat. He didn't need to say anything more to prove his point.

"Weren't you a little harsh on the kid?" Draco inquired, studying him carefully for any sign.

Harry shrugged. "For his own bleeding good. Bugger will think twice before biting off more than he can beat in future."

They drifted through the smoke-filled air, not stopping to chat or to have a drink. Harry's strides were long and purposeful and Draco had to take a few quick steps for every one of Harry's. Harry opened a door at the back labeled "Staff Only. The room was cold and dusty with deserted brooms, (how it reminded him of Quidditch!) buckets, mops and half-empty bottles of cleaning solutions. They climbed a rickety flight of steps.

Draco found himself looking down a long hall, paneled in fake wood, smelling like cigarettes and mold. A few tasteless prints were hung up on nails that had been hammered into the wall, fake flowers in castaway pots set up on tables. Harry ran his fingers across the wall, stopping in front of the third door on his left. He rapped importantly.

He heard a creaking and then advancing steps. "Who is it?"

"Harry."

The door cracked open and he could see a rapidly blinking dark eye. The man on the other side of the door opened it up all the way. "Harry, what brings you here?" His voice was deeper than expected; he looked young, broad-faced and smooth skinned with a pair of dark eyebrows riding low on beetle bright eyes. "Haven't seen you since Farrington. Come in for some tea?" It was only a pleasantry - he motioned toward a tin teapot that spouted lazy tendrils of smoke.

"Oh, this is Draco Malfoy." Draco tried to hide in the shadow of the door but those black eyes rooted him out like a hawk.

"Malfoy," he seemed to be familiar with the name. "Thought Finnagen's men had got you. How'd you get away?"

"I have my ways," Draco said, trying to sound mysterious.

He harrumphed sarcastically. "I'm sure." He extended a small hand. "I'm Edwin." They stepped inside his office, a badly decorated tribute to mismatching file cabinets and chairs that had cappuccino rings on the armrests.

"Mind if I smoke?" Harry asked. Edwin shook his head. From his coat, Harry produced a fag and a dark green lighter. With it between his lips, he cupped the flame. Harry drew in deeply and exhaled. "I need you to do some investigating on a bloke by the name of Jackal. I have a lot invested in the gambling ring in Bristol, he seems to be the one running the joint at the moment."

Edwin nodded. "The usual?"

"Dirty laundry. Rep, wife, kids, girlfriend, mistress. Blackmail material."

"I'll do what I can. Sounds like your run of the mill operator."

"I don't take chances like that."

"I know. Come back on Saturday night. We'll meet for a few drinks. Like old times, if you're not too busy." There was a note of wistfulness in his voice.

"You know I'm always busy."

"I know." Edwin sighed. "It would just be so... nice. Watered down beer and long rants on politics..."

"Goodbye," Harry said firmly, holding out his hand. Draco watched the exchange curiously, feeling that he was missing something.

***

"Is your life always this way?"

Harry didn't remove his eyes from the road. "Sometimes. Sometimes it's different."

Draco could not keep his curiosity in check. "What do you do, exactly?"

Harry sighed. It had an annoyed, patronizing edge to it. "I do whores. I do wives. I do animals. I do boys. I do garden vegetables. I do a lot of things."

"You know what I mean."

Harry pulled his eyes off the road. "As far as I can fucking tell, I'm the one doing you the favors. If I ever feel like telling you, I'll tell you." His face was as unreadable as ever, the slick fringe of his hair covering up that odd scar. He might not have been Harry Potter at all.

"Mind if I ask you something?" Draco pressed on. He knew he was entering a landmine-ridden territory.

"Depends." Harry sped through a red light, narrowly avoiding a Bentley.

"How come you're involved in Muggle affairs and living in Muggle London? I mean," Draco added, "I'm self explanatory. My fucking life would be hell either way, at least Muggles don't give two shits about Malfoys. Works for me. But you-"

To Draco's surprise, Harry laughed. "You think- you think that after Ron, I would be _welcome_ in the wizarding world?"   


"You didn't kill him."

"Tell that to everyone else."

"Your little gang, they didn't believe you killed him, right?"

"No. But it wasn't the same. I could tell all they could see whenever they looked at me was Ron." It was a tiny slip but Draco could hear the pain in Harry's voice.

Harry's fingers tightened on the steering wheel, his eyes scanning the road again. The people and buildings sped by in a blur, as they skipped three red lights, turned right in a left-only lane and made an illegal U-turn before stopping again.

"Stay here."

Draco sank back in his seat, unbuckling his seatbelt, which zipped back up with a snap. The Mayfairs in his pocket were squashed but there were still five left. He found his highly temperamental lighter and willed it to flame. "Come on, come on," he whispered impatiently to no one in particular. It finally lit, the tip of his cigarette turning red gold.

The warm smoke rushing into his lungs was an unadulterated godsend, relaxation running through his bloodstream like a slow burn. He took a few more puffs before cracking open the window to let out the smoke, his other hand rifling through the glove compartment.

Maps of every major city in Britain, a pocket guide to the Kama Sutra, condoms, an unopened carton of cigarettes. He shoved the cigarettes in his pocket without a second thought. And behind a balled up cardigan and a sheaf of brightly colored fliers, his hand touched something cold and slick. He pulled it out.

_Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter, what do we have here?_ He turned it around in his hands, and stared down the barrel (a position he had been in before), fingers passing over the trigger lightly. It read **'GLOCK 17 AUSTRIA 9X19' **and a serial number was imprinted on the right side. The pistol was lightweight and about 7 inches long, fitting comfortably in the grip of his right hand. A semi automatic.

His stomach dropped. _If Harry Potter kept a pistol in his glove compartment-_ His forehead broke out in cold sweat and he had the feeling ants were running under his skin. He felt the urge to open the door and make off with a free pack of cigs while he was still ahead but he just remembered it was as cold as a corpse's arse out there, no free smokes after this pack ran out, no more takeaways, no more nights of Bacardis. He briefly wondered what else Harry kept in his liquor cabinet. He shoved the gun back in the glove compartment behind the cardigan, hoping Harry wouldn't notice anything.

***

"How much?" He glanced at the clear plastic bag holding five grams of white powder on the table. He held out a fat wallet crammed with crisp Euro notes.

"Best I have."

Harry sighed impatiently. "How much?"

"750 Euros."

"Mmm," he remarked, not giving anything away. His eyes seemed to search out from behind his sunglasses and Cardona knew that Harry had an almost supernatural ability to root out dodgy characters on the spot. He leaned on the flat of his hands, his mind on the coffee he had been in the middle of making. The room was heavily scented with cedars and pines and the overlying fragrance of lemon cleaning solution. He was wearing a starched button down shirt with a pen clipped to the shirt pocket, a maroon one that had a hotel name printed in gold on it.

"750 Euros," he repeated firmly.

Harry gave him one more glance. "Fifty, one hundred, one fifty, two hundred, two fifty, three hundred, three fifty, four hundred, four fifty, five hundred, five fifty, six hundred, six fifty, seven hundred, seven fifty," he counted clearly, licking his thumb and putting down the stack of notes. Cardona thumbed through them, satisfied. Harry took the bag and stuffed it into one of the many pockets of his oversize coat. There was probably a holster firmly attached to his hip at all times; if there was any man who knew how to shoot a gun, it was Harry Potter. Cardona treated him more as an equal than as a customer.

"Coffee? Biscuits?" he offered.

"Maybe some other time. I have a few things I have to get done this afternoon."

He turned around, before turning back again. "Hey," he said casually, "Just wondering, you know anything about Jackal, the one who runs the ring in Bristol?"

Cardona planned his answer carefully, making sure it had a few nuggets of detail but keeping it general.

"Yeah, a bit. Met up with him a few times, doesn't talk much but not as stupid as he looks. Plenty of cash to burn. I don't think he lives in Bristol from what I've heard, more likely somewhere in Chelsea..."

Harry nodded. "Thanks." He pulled out another 50 Euro note. Cardona took it.

"Anything else you want to know, just ask."

Harry nodded again before leaving. Cardona looked at the door swinging shut behind him. 50 Euros. Not bad.

***

It seemed Harry was jumpy. His fingers drummed on the dashboard, his leg quivering. He leaned deeply onto the steering wheel until he could have steered with his chin. The car sped away from their stop, the traffic sluggish.

They kept on driving out of Hackney and continued north. Draco dozed off, his chin bobbing gently from side to side.

Harry took a hand wheel and pressed a button.

"... fire in Brixton last night left 5 dead and 15 injured. Police are still investigating the cause of the fire, so far no evidence has been found that it was anything other than an accident. The fire started in a building housing over 10 families and quickly spread to nearby buildings. Among the dead were two small boys, aged 4 and 7. In other news, police are in the process of a crime crackdown. In a statement issued by Prime Minister Roger Beckham, random checks of vehicles will be made and more aggressive penalties for violent crimes are going into effect..." The radio droned on for a while, informing him of the upcoming weather and of a lawsuit brought against a medical company.

Draco was still sleeping. Harry looked over at him, wondering if he was dreaming. He didn't have many dreams anymore and those that he did have were like surrealist paintings of color with cameos by naked Parliament members, sexy actors and football champions. In sleep, Draco looked young and vulnerable, the years stripped off his face. _Good, stay that way._ Harry remembered the cocaine in his coat pocket and formed a loose plan for its future.

"Where are we going?" Draco asked sleepily, a while later. Any farther and they would have been crossing north of the Thames.

"To get your hair cut."

"I need to take a piss."

"Hold it."

Draco looked highly uncomfortable. "Fuck, I can't hold it. You're going to end up with piss all over your nice leather seats."

"You're such a fucking baby, Malfoy."

"Sorry."

"Why didn't you go before we left?"

"Sorry."

"Don't fucking apologize, help me look for one of those public toilets..."

After Draco relieved himself in some unfortunate person's shrubbery, he clambered back in and they made good time across the Thames into the parts of London that weren't featured on _EastEnders_ - nice, respectable, well to do parts. After stopping for a quick sandwich and coffee in a cheerful little café, Harry found a salon wedged between a shop that sold knockoff shoes and a magazine stand.

"Here?" Draco cried.

"Yes. You'r getting your hair cut."

"I've grown attached to it."

"Grow unattached."

"It's not that easy..." he complained, realizing how ridiculous he sounded.

"You need to look presentable."

"I am presentable," he defended himself. "I'm fully clothed. Why do you care, anyway?"

"Because I'm your only ally," Harry answered.

"Is that so? How do you fucking know I haven't got any other allies?"

"And people would be attracted to you because of what? The power you can offer them? Drugs? Sex? Money? Your personal connections with the many soup kitchens in London?"

"I can still offer sex," Draco said stubbornly.

"I know. The weedy, greasy haired type turns them on, doesn't it? Even the men can't keep their hands off your broomstick."

"Were you always this honest?"

"Only for you." Harry smiled nastily. "Get out and get it over with."

Inside, Draco breathed in the acrid smell of hair products and the whir of the hair dryers. A gaunt woman in red heels asked them if they had an appointment and made an annoyed noise when she found out they didn't. Draco picked through the magazine basket, leafing through the glossy fashion monthlies. Harry slipped her a 20 Euro note. She ushered Draco into a giant chair.

"Hello there, luv," said a woman with screaming red hair and fingernails to match, "What would you like done?"

"My hair- I-"

"Cut it off," Harry instructed her. He found a picture of a random male model clad only in pants. "Like that."

Aretha was her name, she informed him; she had two dogs and a parakeet that woke her up early on the weekends. She watched talk shows, enjoyed baking chocolate cakes and biscuits, (she was trying to cut back for her health) and had two perfectly _lovely_ sons who never gave her any trouble. One attended Oxford (bless his heart) and the other was in France for the holidays with his fiancée, who was a wonderful girl, a perfect match. And wasn't it just dreadful about all the shootings in the papers lately?

Draco made unintelligible noises, drifting off as she rinsed his hair with warm water and massaged a pink shampoo onto his scalp and the heady scent of gardenias permeated his brain. She rubbed his hair dry and wheeled him back in front of the mirror, wielding a comb and scissors. The bright fluorescent bulbs lining the top of the mirror gave his skin a yellow tint, making him look tired and jaundiced. He looked like shit.

"So," she chirped, clipping up part of his hair to the top of his head, "What do you do?"

"What do I do," he echoed, thinking of Harry's answer. _I do a wank every once in a while,_ he thought, feeling more pathetic than usual.

"For a living."

"I'm a traveling salesman."

"Ah, really?" Another clump of hair fell to the floor.

"I sell bathing caps," he elaborated on a whim. "All sorts. Ver popular with the ladies."

"Sounds fascinating. Is it hard being a traveling salesman?"

"Oh yes! People don't seem to realize how difficult our job is. You need to have excellent people skills. And you have to know how to handle rejection and make up a good sales pitch on the spot."

"I didn't know traveling salesmen were still around."

"We are," he said desperately. "We are a rare and dying breed of trained professionals."

"Almost done." She picked up a pink plastic hair dryer and switched it on. His ears were filled with the hot whine of the fan. It actually felt quite nice. And his hair felt _clean._ "You're set to go," she informed him, after telling him all about all five of her sisters and their last reunion. (A complete disaster, she said gravely, but he shouldn't be worrying himself about her troubles)

He patted the sides and top of his head gingerly, angling the hand mirror so he could see the left and right. He still had a nice, floppy fringe but the back was clipped short, curling slightly into the nape of his neck. He still looked like shit, hollow cheeked and his skin was too brown, his hair far too pale for his complexion as if he had bleached it with harsh chemicals. But he looked _better,_ if not the face he wanted to see. He could live with it.

Harry walked over. Draco noticed that he still had his coat on, even though the salon was steamy warm. There was a pale film of vapor on his glasses, his trousers were creased from sitting down and he was holding the sports section of the paper in his left hand.

"Ready to go?"

Read? Review!

***

In the next chapter, things get much more exciting. We find what Harry has planned for his little five-gram purchase, the Glock 17 makes a reappearance, not to mention finding out what happened to the Weasleys, sex, croissants, and general sin abounds. I know this chapter has some confusing bits, mostly for lack of backstories (Harry and Draco? Did something happen at Hogwarts we didn't know about?) and some perspective problems, but hopefully that'll be fixed in number two.

Thanks goes to my beta, Kate, who is the absolute best. *glomps* Along with Samira, who read through the first ten pages (sort of) and said it was "good" which is better than "strange". And a few other friends that made encouraging noises while I read a few pages from my notebook, as well as teachers that put up with me scribbling furiously during classes, on the bus, late at night, at lunch and at a Christmas party.

_Side notes_: Euros, pounds, currency, let's just say Britain will be using euro by 2010. I got myself nice and confused over that, not to mention searching for street prices of cocaine, trying to allow for inflation but failing miserably. Glock 17 is a pistol widely used by the military and police (at least that's what a website said, I can't verify all my sources) and you probably shouldn't play with them. Mayfairs are cheap cigarettes, London is a place in Britain, _EastEnders_ is a TV show on channel 21. And red is a color. I think I'm all side noted out.


	2. Just Say No

**Title:** Bad Faith (02)  
**Author name:** Ace  
**Author email:** elel88_2000@hotmail.com  
**Category:** Action/Adventure  
**Sub Category:** Mystery  
**Keywords:** draco post hogwarts paris  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** Wherein Draco takes the car out for a spin, only problem is, he can't really drive. Trouble is afoot as Ginny is stationed in Paris and learns about some Big Evil. Harry pours red wine and contemplates the idea of lovemaking in jelly. Dreams, frilly shirts, and baked cod.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** I reply to all my reviews on the message boards so be sure to check back if you've reviewed. There are more detailed notes and thanks at the end of the chapter.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  


**Bad Faith**

**Chapter Two: Just Say No**

"You look like the Pope on crack," said Harry, referring to the high-collared, ruffled shirt Draco was trying on. Draco looked down at his sleeves, hemmed with what looked suspiciously like frills. "Poncy little girly thing," he muttered, unbuttoning it from the bottom up. He would have ordinarily had a cutting remark, something he remained good at, but he checked his tongue. It was _Harry_ after all, the person who had plucked him off the streets like a pseudo-Cinderella tale; it would make for a good movie.

He sneaked a peek at Harry who had several pairs of bland-colored trousers slung over his left arm and was flipping through a rack of sharp leather coats, each attached to an elaborate security system. Draco wanted to ask- no, he _had_ to ask why he was being treated so well. Harry did not strike him as a reincarnated Mother Theresa by any stretch of imagination.

Draco's brown fingers buttoned up another shirt, a rather plebeian number spruced up with expensive fabrics, something almost elastic.

"Harry?"

"Yes?" Harry turned around, the clothes hangers clacking.

"How's the shirt?" He braced himself, automatically imagining the vilest possible replies Harry could give him. Curiously, he had a hard time thinking of any. Damn, he was out of practice.

"Fine." Harry turned around again, taking a coat off the rack and slipped his off. "Here, hold this." He shoved his jacket into Draco's arms. It was far too heavy for its size, but Draco was too preoccupied to notice. Harry had an odd spark of fluidity in his movement, the natural grace encompassed both on the ground and in the air. It was like seeing a childhood picture at a great distance; Harry looked every inch the affable mobster.

"Fine?" he echoed, expecting something more colorful.

"Fine," Harry repeated firmly. He held a hand out.

"What?"

"My jacket."

Draco was about to say "_Can I hold onto it a bit longer?"_ before he realized how asinine it would sound. He handed it over to Harry who pulled it back on and put the other coat back on the rack.

Looking into the full-length mirror, Draco felt oddly deflated. For the last ten years or so, he hadn't thought much about the way he looked, not the way he had at Hogwarts where Lucius' constant letters reminding him of the importance of presentation had haunted him in his dreams. People took for granted the business of looking presentable, being clean and manicured. Washing his face when he could in a public toilet with rust stains dripping underneath the taps, the water either scorching hot or freezing cold, did not make much of a difference. Showers were a luxury, after he discovered how his hair froze into stiff spikes after putting his head under a tap.

So, examining himself now, he saw something he wasn't sure he liked. He'd always expected, somehow, that underneath the pavement dust, night drizzle and grime he always seemed to wear, that with just a proper cleaning up -

Fuck. He looked _different_. It turned out the darkened state was more a part of him than he had thought; gone was the vampiric pale skin that could be mistaken for Greek marble carvings. Malfoys never got dark, he had always thought as a child, placing the blame on his genes. A cushy lifestyle perhaps had more to do with it.

_It's the lighting, yes, that has to be it..._But his excuses fell short. Draco felt distinctly uncomfortable in his own skin, one that had been religiously scrubbed and exfoliated for the first 17 years of his life. It was not just the unfortunate run in with the car exhaust pipe - he really was this tanned. While he'd always been thin, he noticed the hollows in his face and how his cheekbones were like two sharp mountain ranges.

Harry put a pile of trousers in his arms, a white shirt mixed in. "Try these on," he commanded.

"Harry-" he started hesitantly. But Harry was chatting up a pretty 20 something with a camera hung around her neck, another fresh out of college photojournalist reporting on the plight of Britain, most likely.

He walked into the dressing room, shutting the door behind him. _I am sexy,_ he thought, trying the positive thought approach. But generations of imprinted values did not go away too easily and Lucius' tirades followed him, like a bodyguard appointed for a lifetime, aging but keeping its restless vigil.

* * *

She showed up at 8:00 on the dot, exactly half an hour after Draco left.

Shoving the car keys in his hands, Harry had lent him the Mercedes for the night and told him to go and buy some Christmas cheer. Draco protested then obliged and Harry watched the long black lines of the car swerve dangerously into traffic. Harry had suggested _Tuttons _in Covent Gardens. Draco probably wouldn't get himself killed with any luck, at least not tonight. Or maybe he would, depending on how drunk he got, backing into a crowd of rowdy pedestrians in front of a nightclub. Either way, Harry didn't particularly care.

"Merry Christmas to me," he said softly, the door swishing click-shut behind him. She had a lazy, confident walk and sinfully long legs. Jacqueline had promised him something classy for the holidays. _I have a new girl, mid 20's, great legs and completely natural, _she had told him. Harry was a sucker for legs.

"What would you like me to do?" she asked, one finger coyly tracing the gravity-defying neckline.

She had something different about her than the other women Jacqueline had sent him, a long procession of blondes and brunettes with impressive dirty talk who all claimed to be bisexual. She had a Mediterranean air about her and wouldn't have looked out of place at an Argentinean beauty pageant in a frothy pink gown. Jailbait.

Underneath the jacket she had taken off, she was wearing a sheer red top with a black push up bra underneath. She took a lying position on the leather sofa reminiscent of a Playboy pinup. He could tell she wasn't wearing any underwear. Kinky.

"Would you like a drink?"

"Red wine would be nice."

Harry poured her a glass at the mini bar. He sat down next to her; she placed her bare feet on the carpet and leaned up against him. She had the overpowering scent of Escada Sentiment, so strong Harry couldn't think straight.

"Aren't you going to have one?"

"I have something better."

"Mmm," she whispered, wet white teeth nibbling his ear in a way that sent little zings down his spine. "What is it?"

"You're pretty," he said absently, his fingers underneath her chin. She pouted.

"Just pretty? What turns you on?"

He played her game for a while until she seemed satisfied, building herself up for what had to be done.

She smiled wickedly. "Are you a good boy?" she breathed. Her hand, now lying on his chest, wound its way down to his stomach and then to an altogether more concealed place where her fingers did _something_ that made his breath hitch. It seemed to be a favorite line of theirs.

"Sometimes." His standard reply.

Her fingers unbuttoned the first three buttons on his designer shirt. One strap of her bra had expertly been pushed off her shoulder, the swell of one breast made a tantalizingly full curve underneath the transparent fabric. "Would you share?" she purred.

"Maybe."

He looked at her again, searching for the Argentinean beauty pageant teen, but instead only seeing another painted femme fatale, cynical and calculating how much sex and cash they could drain out of their men before discarding them.

"What if..." her fingers undid another three buttons. _Oh for fuck's sake, just get on with it already._ "What if I let you lick whipped cream off my stomach?"

"Tempting."

"Or, there's something else I always wanted to try..."

"_Mmhmm_." He kissed her neck, the perfume clouding his brain.

"You know, I always wanted to make love in a bathtub of jelly."

"What flavor?"

"Cherry."

"If we did it in a tub of jelly, would I bounce?" Her nails were running up and down his thighs, setting his nerves on edge.

"I have chocolate mousse."

"People have told me that's what I taste like."

"I'll have to decide that for myself."

"What if I do this?"

She unzipped his trousers in a deliciously slow fashion, snaking one hand inside his pants. Harry gasped, his erection stiffening.

He groaned softly.

"Pity. I thought you'd be harder to tease than that." She plucked off his sunglasses and frowned slightly. "You look familiar."

"That's what everyone tells me." He pinned her down on the sofa.

"Are you sure we haven't met?"

"Maybe in another life." He cut her off with a kiss. She shut up.

***

The French Minister of Magic, Frederic Dupont, was wearing ancient black robes, fastened with tiny silver clasps all down the front. He was as gnarled and wrinkled with age as Albus, but his hair was an unbroken black. Whether it was natural or dyed, Ginny didn't know.

"Auror Weasley and Auror Chang, I am extremely grateful you could be here at such a demanding time of year."

Ginny stared at her feet. "As if we had a choice," she said through her teeth.

"Please, sit down. Would you like some _café_, or _thé_? At this time of year, _chocolat_ is delicious as well..."

Ginny knew that Dupont was making a sustained effort to be pleasant but she was surly anyway. "Hot chocolate," she spat, planning to single-handedly undermine French-English relations.

"Tea, _s'il vous plaît_." Cho had taken to inserting French phrases at every possible moment, even when talking to Ginny whose appreciation of French was on a par with her fascination with Tibetan goat farming. Nonexistent.

An assistant with ridiculously long blonde hair and classical features brought in their drinks, balancing three crystal chalices with the French Ministry seal branded on them, a vitreous combination of rose and sword. Dupont had a pale golden liquid, probably some sort of wine the French were so famous for making.

Ginny burned her mouth immediately, her tongue and the roof of her mouth going numb. Cho sipped the tea, one pinky in the air. Ginny felt an unfocused dislike toward her partner.

"I trust your stay in France has been pleasant?"

"It's been just wonderful," Cho hurried out before Ginny could say anything and lose both their jobs.

"Just great," Ginny chimed in for effect.

They were staying in a suite at the Pavillon de la Reine, a luxury hotel Ginny found had a fascinatingly empty beauty. Everything was so tastefully done in period furniture, rich purple draperies and the beams and paneling... The lounge had an imposing fireplace, plush striped chairs, and elegant lamps with black steel necks that shed a golden light. The French Ministry was making an effort, they really were. But why was it that she would have rather been at the mismatched and crooked Burrow?

The minister regarded Ginny closely. The redhead was not happy, he realized. "I know it must be difficult to spend such a joyous time of year away from your loved ones. I apologize profusely. If anything is not to your liking, alert Gabrielle, my assistant and I will take care of it personally."

"Thank you," Ginny said, wondering what could possibly be fixed short of sending her home.

The Minister touched the clasps on the front of his robe, airy filigree creations that sparkled with an unnatural light. "_Gabrielle, je voudrais les photographies pour AI24_."

Gabrielle laid a plain manila folder on his desk on top of some scattered pink papers. It was very slender. Dupont's eyes held a dead hope in them; something Ginny usually saw when interviewing freed Azkaban prisoners. There was a tired set to his mouth and his shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly.

"You see," he started, "you have been brought here without being told the full story of why you are here. You were told in very vague terms of a dire emergency in France that had resulted in the death or insanity of 14 wizards and witches, all working in the French Ministry."

"André Bucher, Jules Ceever, Tristan De Lorme, Léon Badeau, Gérard Devereux, Anouk Bernard, Cécile Legrand, Luce Laurent, Margaux Dubois, Monique Dubois, Nathalie David, Nathalie Fontaine, Odette Robert, and Jean-Paul Rousseau," Cho read, looking at a crumpled piece of paper in her hand.

"Yes. All of them seemingly unrelated. One the head of Illegal Artifacts, another the head of Magical Cooperation, but most of them having low profile jobs. Margaux Dubois, for example, was a receptionist at the Department of Magical Origins."

"How were they killed?"

Dupont looked troubled. "That's the problem. Usually, when someone uses the Unforgivable Curses or any spell for that matter, they leave magical residue. You can easily identify recently cast magic on anything using a simple spell. When examining the murders, Aurors couldn't find any magical residue on the victims."

"What about Muggle methods of killing?" Ginny asked.

He shook his head. "We went through all the procedures in identifying Muggle causes of death - autopsies, blood tests, examining markings on the body... We came up with nothing. Absolutely nothing. No sign of suffocation, strangling, or even natural causes like aneurysms or stroke." His eyes grew heavy and dark, like black opals, waiting to burst. One hand made a shaking gesture before dropping to his side. "So you see, there is trouble."

He drank some of his wine. Gabrielle lifted her arm, sleeve embroidered with Oriental dragons, and held up a jade colored decanter, filling his glass again.

"How is this related to the British Ministry?" Cho had finished her tea and set the chalice on the armrest, which proved to be a bad move. Her right hand atched her forehead, her elbow knocking the chalice off.

There was a horrified pause as Cho scrambled to catch it, just missing. It broke into three pieces. _How delicate it must be to break from so short a fall._

"I'm- I'm so sorry, so sorry," Cho rushed out, dropping to her knees alongside Gabrielle.

One corner of Dupont's mouth twitched. "Do not worry about it, Auror Chang. That is the least of our troubles at the moment. I daresay a quick spell will repair it." Gabrielle, Ginny noted with interest, backed away, hands clasped behind her back.

"_Reparo!"_ The pieces flew back together with an efficient _clink_. Cho blushed.

"We were saying?"

"The British Ministry," Cho prompted, her ears still pink.

"Ah, yes. As you know, a strong alliance between Britain and France was formed during the Voldemort War. This included sharing intelligence to see if there were any connections in crime that could be put together from underground activities. At the time, this was a given. However, now it is proving doubly useful. One of the Aurors found reason to believe there was British involvement in these deaths."

"Surely, you aren't suggesting-"

"My apologies. Please allow me to rephrase: one of the Aurors found reason to believe there were British criminals involved. Every country must wage battle with these individuals, unfortunately. I do not rest easy at night knowing that my people are capable of committing such acts on their own government."

_What else was new?_

Dupont motioned towards the folder on his desk. They had almost forgotten about it. "Here, we have all that we know of this case," he said. "You may notice it is a very slender file," he added sorrowfully.

He picked out some crime scene photos, eerily still. He avoided looking at them but passed them into Cho and Ginny's hands. There was a beautiful young woman with curly brown hair, who couldn't have been more than 25 years old. There was also a middle-aged man who reminded Ginny of her father and a young woman with a brightly colored headscarf and bleeding earlobes.

Despite all her experience with the unpleasant issue of death, the photos chilled her. A fierce anger permeated her nose and throat, coming up from her stomach and coursing through her blood like a strong spice.

"The Aurors at the scene also found this." Dupont's wrinkled hand picked up an equally wrinkled piece of paper with some smudged writing on it.

"What does it say?"

"Read it yourself."

Cho took the paper and flattened it out. "Mr. Big," she read, "We expect the next shipment to be in by next month through the usual channels. It is almost complete and testing was successful on all subjects, as requested. Signed, YR."

"Who is Mr. Big?" Ginny's curiosity was steadily rising.

"That's the strangest part," Dupont sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Mr. Big is what the Muggle British police have nicknamed Brian Wright, a man who is thought to own a massive drug empire. They believe he is hiding in Cyprus..."

***

_"Where's Hermione?" Molly asks. Ron's eyes are downcast. Harry is leaning against the doorjamb, cigarette between his fingers. Molly hates the smell of cigarette smoke, she hates this new habit of his but she does not say anything. Arthur puffs on his pipe occasionally when Molly is away, the Weasleys guiltily fanning the air and opening windows trying to hide what Molly can sniff out in an instant._

You've been smoking again,_ she will accuse and every time she is right._

_"With her parents, holidaying in America," says Ron, staring at his palms as if he is trying to burn lifelines into his flesh. Harry does not say anything. His eyes are unfocused, thinking about something lovely and faraway. _

_Molly wishes she knew what it was, Harry is always preoccupied, spending so much of his time in the bathroom Fred and George simply cannot resist constipation jokes. When he comes out, he sparkles for a short while and then like a bundle of extinguished matches, he sinks into his gray moodiness again. _

_But Ron sneaks looks at him, as if he knows something so horrible it is snapping every fiber to restrain himself. Something is different, something is wrong._

_"Why don't you send her an owl?" Molly suggests, gutting the turkey._

_"Already did." It is Christmas but the looks on their faces are anything but jolly. Ron is a mechanical toy, wound up too tightly, and Harry has lost interest in everything around him. The reflections in his pupils are flat and gray, his fingertips are stained yellow and stink of chain-smoked Embassies, he wanders around outside in a thin jacket at night and Molly watches his insomnia from her bedroom window, worrying and wondering if he will be Her Harry again._

_Molly suspects that she knows what it is._

_Harry has left and Ron is still sitting there. His freckles stand in stark contrast to his fair skin. "Mum?" he asks._

_Molly wipes her hands off on a paper towel and with efficient stitches she closes the cavity of the turkey. "Yes?"_

_"Do you think, I mean, would he-" Ron mutters. He sighs, his shoulders nearly breaking away from the effort. "When's dinner going to be ready?"_

_Shaking the finger she has pricked and blotting the blood on a fresh towel, Molly only hears what she should. "Not for quite a few more hours," she says, performing a Healing Charm._

_Ginny barges in breathless. "You won't believe what Bill and Charlie are doing to the gnomes! They're...They're..." lacking words to describe it, she gesticulates wildly. "Come on Ron!" He trudges off, expecting Molly to put an end to the potentially dangerous situation but she merely places the turkey in the oven._

_The Celestina Warbeck holiday song "You Bewitch Me" plays between blips of static on the WWN. They play this song every year, a slick, syrupy ballad with a small army of backup singers about Christmas, True Love, and apple cider. Molly snaps it off, retiring to a kitchen chair with _Ranch Passions_, a romance novel set in Texas. The heroine is a headstrong redhead, the man a successful ranch owner with smoldering blue eyes and a dark past. They have made love twice and fought three times._

_The turkey burns because Molly is reading the part where they are tragically torn apart and she fans the blackened skin in despair. They joke about it over dinner and Harry is in a happy mood, he talks and talks like there is no tomorrow. They are all in high spirits and Molly passes around copious amounts of gravy to mask the dry, smoky meat. Gravy makes everything go down easy._

_Percy has invited Penelope over for Christmas, much to the delight of the twins who enjoy sharing embarrassing photos and stories, which make Percy's freckles indistinguishable from his skin color._

_But they sense there is something more there than a simple mutual like. Bill has a new boyfriend, he seems to chew them up and spit them out at machine gun speed. Bill is smiling so widely when he talks about Noah, it looks like his face will crack. _

_Ron excuses himself early, saying he will write an owl to Hermione. _Probably going to his room to wank off to her picture,_ Fred suggests and Molly smacks him with a serving spoon. They know it; they can feel it, like they can feel the glow surrounding Percy and Penelope. Molly is always surprised by their inherent sensitivity that is covered up with exploding things and rude jokes. _

_Harry nibbles at the meal, but he does not eat anything. He is so thin; he has barely eaten anything in the time he has stayed. Penelope is the one who suggested dining by candlelight. The candles are melted down to uneven lengths and placed in a tarnished holder but somehow, it looks unearthly. In the flickers, the hollows and shadows of his face are pronounced._

_It is drawing late; the children grow drowsy, all except the perpetually buoyant Matilda. She has just nipped in for a glass of milk for dear Matilda. She needs warm milk to get to sleep every time she stays over. _

_Ron is lying on the kitchen floor. Ron is lying there, a stain spreading out from his stomach and bleeding onto the white shirt she ironed for the interview. Molly ironed that shirt so studiously like it was the last shirt she was ever to iron, flattening out every last wrinkle and turning the cuffs just so. Ron blushed when she fussed over him too much. He looked so young and adorable when he blushed._

_And her eyes see the dagger in Harry's hand. Sirius gave it to him for his seventeenth birthday and Harry loves it more than even his first Firebolt. It shines dully, even in the waning kitchen light. The blood on the blade seems luminous._

A charmed blade,_ Sirius wrote on the card._ Aided in the fall of Grindelwald. _Harry loves that blade like his first-born; Albus died early in the year, a heavy clutch at everyone's hearts. Dear Albus, who so unerringly led them through as his health deteriorated and his energy was sapped._

_Harry has a dumb look on his face, staring at the dagger in his hand as if trying to put two and two together._

_It is quiet. The pile of dishes are stacked high in the sink from Christmas dinner, large silver gravy tureens, huge embossed platters and enormous serving spoons with a coating of food. A cabinet door and two drawers are open. A framed picture of all the Weasleys, grinning brightly and tickling each other. A photo of Matilda and Maurice, both cherubic babies, Molly's spoilt grandchildren, hangs on the wall next to their red and blue handprints. Charlie's wife, Natalie, has another Weasley on the way, Ginny is the eternal bachelorette, and the twins need women with a sense of humor._

_Harry's eyes are huge and liquid green behind his glasses. His face is pale, the edges of his lips bloodless. He keeps licking them as if he wants to taste something that isn't there._

_His hand has trails of blood running between the knuckles, in slashes across his palm and pooling underneath his bitten fingernails. He has a green cloak on and a sweater she sent him for Christmas. It is bunched up untidily around his elbows._

_"Mrs... Mrs... Weasley..." he says. His eyes are full of a fevered desperation, almost dead in how alive it is. He looks down at his hand._

_A light snow is falling. The brown grass is powdered in white._ It's too warm to be snowing. Too warm.

_"Mrs. Weasley..."_

_Green spots dance in front of Molly's eyes, blurring at the edges. The world is slowly folding in on itself. Her knees... _Where is Arthur? Arthur needs to be here_. She has lost all control of her body, she isn't sure if she is laughing or crying or choking or screaming. Something is clawing away at her insides._ _Burn her. Kill her. Consume her._

_"Mrs. Weasley!" Harry's voice breaks into a high, wavering treble. _He looks so young._ "Mrs. Weasley!" There is a horrible whine in his voice. One hand raises up to her elbow as if to touch her. _Ron's blood is on that hand. 

_Harry starts crying, long wet tracks flowing down his cheeks, crying and crying, punctuated with guttural sobs. "Mrs. Weasley... Mrs. Weasley..." He says the name as if it is a red and white buoy cast out to him at sea. "Mrs. Weasley..."_

_ Molly just stumbles out of the back door, so very sure it is a nightmare._

_Harry follows her._

_And now this. "Mrs. Weasley..." he tries._

_Molly raises her head, trying to focus her eyes on him. "This is a dream," she says simply._

_Harry is scared to hear her voice. It is robotic, dead. "I didn't! I didn't! I didn't! I didn't..." he chokes out, even though she has not verbally accused him of anything. But they both know, both know only too well. Harry is heaving and sobbing, like he is trying to vomit. Not the first time. _

_His nose is bleeding. He has had so many nosebleeds since coming to stay with the Weasleys, it is the winter weather, he assures her. He grinds his teeth constantly, Molly notices again, his jaws always clenched in a rigor mortis. She is not surprised he is still awake, he hasn't slept much from the sounds of whispering. Sometimes he wanders the backyards and drinks the store of Christmas rum. He is so lackluster, just a fading portrait of the Harry Molly used to love. _

_"Get out." There is nothing in her voice but what she means. It is the most truthful thing she will ever say. "Get out. I never want to see you again." Molly forgets this is _Harry Potter_, forgets he was Ron's best friend and the little boy she fed and fawned over. She forgets everything. She does not know who this young man standing before her is. _

_From somewhere deep inside, Molly screams. She screams because she wants to break. She screams so every atom and subatomic particle will crack and bleed along with her and tears are burning down her face like acid rain and her heart is about to burst out of her throat and her lungs are going to explode like the red and green Christmas poppers Maurice is so fond of. _

_Lights snap on upstairs, footsteps creaking down the stairs and the rustle of robes being pulled on and cold feet being shoved into slippers. Percy is the first out and the second to know. Molly turns around and Percy is standing there, moonlight throwing a shadow across his face that elongates his nose._

_"Mum," he croaks, his shoulders slumped, "Ron-" and a guttural sound rips through his throat and Molly thinks he is crying, only Percy hasn't cried since he was nine when he cut half of his finger off trying to slice cucumbers. And he snaps into a no-nonsense mode that is usually reserved for her. "Quick, find some towels and I'll get Ginny, she took the Medical Magic course. Dad can probably emergency-summon mediwizards from the Ministry..."_

_Molly just runs forward and grips Percy so tightly he goes blue. She knows; she knows it will be useless. She knows Ron is gone forever, like she knew when Fred and George were hiding joke shop items in their clothing and knew that Charlie had fallen in love. It is motherly instinct, sometimes a curse and a gift and she wishes not to know , wishes she could still hope that maybe, just maybe, Ron would be hers to cook for and scold and embarrass again. _

_"What the bloody hell is going on..." Bill stumbles down the stairs._

_"Ron," Percy croaks. "He-"_

Molly woke up, panting, her nightgown clammy and twisted around her thighs. The blue and yellow quilt was halfway off the bed. Arthur was lying on his side, snoring gently, his ribs rising and falling.

She looked at the little clock on the nightstand but it was too dark to make out. She fumbled around for her wand, knocking off a notepad and bumping into the cracked lamp which wobbled dangerously on its stand.

"_Lumos,_" It was only 4:27. Molly rolled back onto the bed. Arthur could have slept through the Normandy Invasion. She pulled one sleeve across her eyes. The fabric there was worn, even more than the rest of the nightgown. It used to be new, years and years ago...

"Merry Christmas," she whispered to the air. She leaned over and kissed Arthur's bald spot, the one he kept on trying to cover up, and cuddled up to him. He felt warm and dependable, like always. Bill would be arriving at two, Percy and Penelope at four with Maurice and Matilda and Charlie with Angelica, toting baby Elisa. Ginny was stationed in Paris, working on some top secret case for the French Ministry that she seemed to know as little about as Molly.

Soon enough, she would spend all morning and afternoon over the stove. She drifted off into an empty sleep.

* * * 

Draco drove along Victoria Street. Unlike Harry who narrowly missed other cars on purpose, Draco's bad driving was completely unintentional. The last time he had handled a car was years ago and while he remembered the basics, he kept lurching forward and then braking quickly, throwing himself back in the seat. He drew a symphony of angry honks.

He had driven a few cars before during an extremely brief stint as a taxi driver and had luckily been sacked before he caused any fatalities. Draco, in general, liked things he could ride and steer like Quidditch brooms. He'd never been brilliant at anything, which had been the brunt of his shame during his Hogwarts days. He'd been good, getting good marks in almost all of his classes with the highest being Potions and Runes, he'd been good at Quidditch (for all of Ron's yelps of buying his way onto the team), he'd been good at being an insufferable git. But he'd always lacked that thing that made people _great_.

It didn't bother him anymore, partly because the Malfoy name was in the crapper and partly because Lucius was dead. It a way, he was more free than he'd ever been but hard as it was to admit it, sometimes that unbearable pressure was what had made him at least good at something.

He was brought back to the matter at hand by several rude honks from a driver in a red sports car.

Turning left onto Whitehall, he passed by the Clarence Inn and Charing Cross Station. He nearly ran over a male couple before pounding his foot down on the brake pedal (consequently nearly putting his head through the windscreen) and one of them angrily made several suggestive gestures with his hands. Draco, finally finishing the harrowing drive white-knuckled and flushed, ended up in pricey Covent Garden.

_Tuttons_ was at the busy corner of Russell Street and the Piazza with red and yellow umbrellad tables set out on the pavement and giant glass windows that provided a perfect looking glass of goingson in the continuous life of pedestrians, the everyday soap operas of insolent children and necking lovers.

It was a writer's delight, where one could innocuously eat their fettuccine while examining strangers and spinning elaborate stories about their lives. Draco, never the artistic type, was interested in no such thing.

Inside, it was decorated in the same Spanish red and yellow and Draco couldn't help but feel cheered. In the Good Old Days (as he referred to them bitterly) Lucius had taken him out to dinner twice a week during the summer, sometimes to _Rollman's_ when he was feeling daring or to the _Grisseldorf_, which, despite its name, was a laughably proper English restaurant that served tea at 4 o'clock sharp and employed a cook who would take great offense if anyone requested a dish that was remotely exotic.

Narcissa would order a salad, never Caesar, always some sort of runny speckled vinaigrette drizzled on top of dark, strangely shaped leaves. And she always ate exactly half of it, drawing a near perfect line down the center of the plate to separate the half she would eat from the half that she would not, her claret lips never touching her fork.

He didn't like to think of Narcissa.

"Are you ready to order?" A chubby waitress holding a white pad and a pencil was standing in front of him. He scanned the menu, which was the definition of "moderately priced international fare". He wondered why Harry had suggested it, he seemed to live both the black and white stereotypes of the social classes without stopping in between.

"A cup of coffee and the baked cod."

"How do you like your coffee?"

"Black, with two sugars."

She scribbled it down on her notepad and left.

He wished he had ordered something Thai immediately after. He'd never had the opportunity to try it as Lucius had had a prejudice against the far East, citing some ancient war or the other. He looked around carefully out of habit and involuntarily made mental notes. _Red sweater man with curly hair, Asian family of four, two blondes in blue raincoats._

A little folded stand on the table listed different types of drinks illustrated with grainy photographs. He touched the petals of the red and yellow carnations standing upright in the tall glass vase. They were real.

The waitress carried over his coffee. "Here you go," she proclaimed, more dropping it in front of him than setting it down. The coffee rocked dangerously close to the lip of the yellow mug. "Be careful, it's hot."

Draco's left hand shot out to steady it.

"The food will be ready soon. If you need anything, just call me over."

Draco nodded. He blew on the surface of coffee, little brown ripples spreading out like agitated pond water. He took a sip, it wasn't bad at all. _When was the last time I was in a proper restaurant?_ He mulled over the complexity of his current position. Harry-bloody-Potter had rescued him, sort of. Did he want to be saved by Satan?

The baked cod wasn't half-bad, if too dry. He felt very conspicuous and lonely, seeing everyone else traveling in groups or the brave people in pairs. It was, as the American papers had dubbed it, Bloody Bloody Britain. The foreign travelers were foolish and intrepid types these days, who didn't worry about becoming another listed casualty read about by a Brighton commuter on the tube. Londoners were jaded now. The disaster footage on the telly seemed almost essential to the news.

_He presses the flat of his fingers and palms together and rests his chin on his thumbs. He breathes in from his nose, sucking out the warm air from between that tiny space where his fingers don't quite meet, sending little tingles down his thighs. He breathes out, filling it with warm breath again._

_ It almost looks as if he is praying - except Draco Malfoy doesn't believe in God, never will believe in God. It's hard to believe in God when your parents are Death Eaters and you want to become one too, the way little boys want to be firefighters and policeman and little girls want to be ballerinas and singers. _

_God, if he does exist, is one twisted motherfucker, Draco thinks. _

There was just a brown ring and film in the bottom of his cup. He thought of ordering another, debated, then decided not to. The waitress showed up again, throwing down a platter of baked cod, garnished with a lemon slice and a spray of cilantro.

Draco takes a bite. "My compliments to the chef," he says, deadpan.

"I'll be sure to tell him."

He almost ate the lemon garnish before spitting it out. His mouth was acid sour and filled up with saliva. He fingered the petals of the red and yellow carnations, spinning the stems around in their vase. The waitress was drawing near again, wringing her hands.

He was automatically struck by the blind fear in her eyes. He acknowledged her with a quick tip of his chin. He would wait for her to say something and _then_ he'd order another coffee.

"Sir- sir- you need to uh- meet the, uh, manager outside in the car park..." She trailed off with a miserable look on her face, flattening out the front of her blouse in nervous motions.

Draco raised an eyebrow. "What's this about?"

"Uh, you see, the manager needs to see you."

"About what?" he snapped, wishing she'd get on with it.

"Um, I'm not, well, it's about the uh, your car."

"What about my car?" Draco prayed Harry hadn't done anything Really Damning to the Mercedes that might lead to a night in the slammer.

"It's, uh, parked in the wrong space."

"Really? You sound awfully unsure. Why would the manager need to see me about a parking space?"

"Um, please, just meet them, I mean him, outside about the uh, parking space."

The girl looked like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her ankles rocked in and out and she was methodically wrinkling the lower half of one shirtsleeve. Draco got up. He didn't really want to finish his cod all that much anyway.

"Out in the car park?" he said suspiciously.

The waitress nodded. "Be careful," she blurted.

"Why? Will he attempt to molest me in the backseat?"

Oddly, she did not smile or even look disgusted. "He's, uh, not a nice person," she finished lamely.

"Thanks for the warning."

He walked out the door, immediately slapped across the face with a belt of winter wind. His hip caught on one of the chairs placed outside (it was _winter_ and they still had the tables out?) He rubbed it furiously. His brand new trainers felt like wood on his feet. Everything he was wearing was brand new and paid for courtesy of Harry Potter with the exception of his jacket.

Two men were standing in front of the Mercedes, one in pressed khakis and a blue polo, the other in jeans and an ill fitting windbreaker. They could have been anybody.

An alarm went off in his mind. Two managers?

He approached them warily, giving them a wide berth and stopping six feet away. They didn't look like Draco's mental image of a manager. Parking space? Bollocks.

"So, boys, what is this about the parking space?"

He was suddenly aware of two semi automatics pointed at him, not unlike the one in Harry's glove compartment.

"Damn."

"You could say that, Malfoy. Don't even try moving."

"What'd you do to the waitress?"

"Threatened her with the same thing we're about to do to you. Blow your brains out."

"It does appear that way, doesn't it?" _Stall, stall, think up Brilliant Plan because the arsehole here doesn't have a wand..._ Their hands did not waver.

"Does Finnagin pay you well?"

"Good enough."

"I was told I suck cock very well. How about we do a trade? Sexual favors in return for my life." Draco said, feeling desperate. The images in front of him swam.

"Give it up. We've got you this time and you can't work any funny stuff either."

"How do you know? I was just about turn Mr. Blue Polo here into a fire hydrant and you, I think, would make a nice dog. You could just lift a leg and piss on your friend here."

The one in the windbreaker laughed grimly. Deep wrinkles showed up on his cheeks, he looked like one of the men in a Van Gogh painting. "Oh no you don't. You can't."

His lungs felt tight and he found it hard to draw in air. Oh what a fucking convenient time to develop asthma. He reminded himself to quit smoking if he ever came out of this alive. At the moment, it looked like he would never have the chance to suffer withdrawal or wear those patches on his skin.

"I could."

"You need a wand. You don't have one."

Fuck. How could they have known that? His scalp itched, his arm itched, his leg itched, his crotch itched. Second rate underwear. And with any luck, he would be allergic to silk as well.

"I have a wand."

Another chuckle. "You don't."

Draco's temples felt like they were going to explode like a stopped up pressure cooker. He felt hot and panicky, so intense he was going to combust and kill himself before they could kill him. That was the idea anyway. His hands balled up so tight he could feel his nails working caverns into the flesh of his palms.

And suddenly, the Mercedes' doors popped open, hitting the car next to it and _Draco was inside._ He could hear shouts of confusion behind him and he slammed the door shut, twisting the key in the ignition with his other hand. The car engine roared to life, he pushed the parking brake and his mind went blank.

"Oh shit," he moaned, trying to regain his senses. Brake, brake, then he yanked the gearshift to reverse and hit the gas pedal. The car zoomed back with a truly alarming speed and he saw the two men running out of the way, Draco's hands gripping the steering wheel, tires squealing. His heart was hammering away against his chest and he was breathing shallowly and with a very audible _bump_ he hit another car.

Bullets whizzed by where he had been only a half second before. Draco braked furiously and was nearly thrown out of his seat. He was temporarily stunned again, he pushed the gear shift forward into drive and pressed the gas.

Two bullets broke the windscreen and Draco was sorry to say he screamed. His foot slammed down on the gas pedal as if he was trying to break it, his hands frantically turning the steering wheel in what he hoped was the right direction. It was.

Draco had no time to savor his miraculous getaway or to question the wandless magic, which he had assumed was Pretty Damn Impossible. Nearly crashing into _Tuttons_ and mowing over the tables, he sped away, car swerving wildly. Drops of blood from his forehead were staining his hands like a Pollock creation.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

***

"Muggle involved in this? But- but- that's a full breach of Clause 73 of the ICW..."

Dupont looked amused. "Yes, it would be. But at the moment Clause 73 is the least of our worries. We must put it in perspective."

"Yes, yes, of course," Cho said quickly. She had always been the legal nitpicker. Ginny suspected she slept with a leather bound edition of the ICW under her pillow at night and memorized it, footnotes and all. "What else do you know about Brian Wright?"

One corner of Dupont's mouth moved in what could have been a smile. "The Muggle police... They have enough on him to use up several rainforests. He is wanted in most European countries, including France, for an impressive list of crimes. Drug trafficking, first degree murder, arson... He specializes in cocaine smuggling but also dabbles in the Muggle club drugs scene. He owns more firearms than the German and French military combined." He stopped for a moment, his tongue heavy. "The police describe him as ruthless, violent, and extremely intelligent. And that's just the tip of the iceberg."

"He's wanted for murder?" Ginny asked.

"He appears to be connected to the murders of members of his own networks - people who embezzled funds, those who went to the police with information as well as those who were investigating him. Mixed in is the death of pedestrians and guards who were standing in his way."

"Why would he be involved with the magical community?" Cho stared at the picture of Monique Dubois in her hands, as if willing her to move.

"We don't know. We can speculate it may have to do with drugs, but we have no concrete evidence to support this. The note simply says 'shipment', whether it be cocaine or porn..." Cho rubbed her eyes and took another sip of her drink. "Are you familiar with the workings of cocaine?"

Ginny wracked her brain. "We had a few 'Just Say No' pamphlets at school, ridiculous really, all the students just used them to make paper aeroplanes. They never went into huge detail."

"It is unfortunate that many wizards underestimate drugs. I believe that they are every inch as dangerous as Class A Non-Tradeable Goods but the wizarding world continues to ignore them as a plight of weak Muggles. Even the strongest wizard can fall prey to them." Ginny noted there was an edge of bitterness in his voice.

"Do you have personal experience with them?" Ginny asked, curious.

"Yes." There was something fiercely angry and regretful in his voice, like a horrible realization of hindsight, directed at nothing in particular. Ginny let it drop.

Dupont continued. "We've already sent an elite squad of Aurors to investigate in Cyprus. There are wanted posters hung up in every coffee shop and telephone pole there. Even using magic, they couldn't locate him, which for a mere Muggle is fairly impossible. Jacques, who led the search, combed over every last square inch of Cyprus but they turned up no more than the Muggle police."

"Does he have the help of wizards?" Brian Wright was like the ultimate villain, almost god-like in power, it seemed. He reminded Ginny uncomfortably of Voldemort.

"We suspected as much. Since we already believe he somehow was behind the deaths at the Ministry, it would make sense."

Even with the unfamiliarity of her surroundings, the story struck a familiar chord. The disappearance, the long line of deaths, the ardent network of followers. "Death Eaters?" Ginny asked without thinking.

Dupont was silent, the patient _tick, tick_ of the clock magnified. "Perhaps," he finally replied, looking more exhausted than ever. "Perhaps."

"But all Death Eaters were captured and imprisoned in Norselles," Cho protested, "after the war, there were mass trials and an enormous team of Aurors, over 120 I believe, rooted out _anybody_ associated with the Dark Lord."

"And it was an excellent effort. They not only captured Death Eaters, they ruined the lives of everybody connected to them. Wives, husbands, children, lovers, employers, employees. They left a ocean of ruined lives in their wake."

"But if they hadn't half of the world's population would have been completely obliterated!" There was an indignant look on Cho's face.

"I wasn't criticizing their method, Auror Chang, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I meant simply that it's not an impossibility for relatives, still bitter over having their properties seized and reputations disgraced, to feel that they need to put those who hurt them in their place."

"But why us?" Ginny broke in. "Why do you need us, how would we help?"

"Ah, Auror Weasley, an excellent question," Dupont laced his fingers together. "France, save for the second Voldemort War, has been an exceptionally peaceful country. All troubles and disagreements here, for the most part, have been suppressed quickly. Crime is at an all time low, the law keepers are growing lazy from lack of work. We employ some of the most bored Aurors in the Western hemisphere. And, sadly, almost all of the Aurors we sent to participate in the second Voldemort War never returned alive or are retired. Britain on the other hand..."

"Has not been particularly peaceful," Cho supplied, almost amused at the grim contrast. Her lips held a bleak smile.

"I took the liberty of looking through your records. You have both been key figures in handling the Manticore Uprising of 2006 and the Brighton Massacres that would have certainly led to another war had it not been for your efforts."

Ginny wasn't sure how to receive the compliment. She still had an ugly scar on her back, so deep even magic had trouble covering it up.

"So, this is what you need to do in your stay here," he said, his eyes boring holes in them, "In the 13th Arrondissement, we have heavy suspicion that is where much of the criminal activity happens. Pose as Muggle criminals or whatever guise you must use. Pretend to be interested in cashing in, and capture as many people as you can for questioning. You may use any methods possible for achieving these ends."

_That's all?_ Dupont read the expressions on their faces. "I dearly wish I could give you more detailed instructions but this is as much as a mystery to us as it is to you. It has been attempted numerous times before, none of them successful. While we believe it is in the 13th Arrondissement, we may be wrong as it has not actually been located. It is more than likely to be protected by a variety of obstacles, both magical and Muggle."

"No pressure," Cho whispered under her breath.

Dupont granted them a wry half-smile. "_Bonne chance_. You will need it."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

Much pain went into this chapter. Who knew the second chapter was going to be so difficult? Does it get any easier? Not to mention a slew of self doubts yammering away... "You can't do this! It's a horrible idea! You'll get flamed to high hell!"

_Tutton's_ exists the way it is to the best of my knowledge, plucked from between the pages of _Frommer's Travel Guide to England_. The car scene may not be entirely correct, I crash coursed myself on how to put a car into reverse. This may only apply to a certain Dodge Intrepid, however, so I wouldn't know. The back-story is mainly experimentation in style. The cocaine will appear in the next chapter, promised, as I have already started writing it. I have an almost scary knowledge now, who knew such things were on the internet? :P

Love to: _Kate_ (supreme beta) and _Ursula_ (alcohol beta), who is the one that is going to be responsible for all drink choices in the future so Draco no longer suffers through drinking decidedly Unmanly Alcohol. And to _Aja_, for reccing my fic on her Livejournal, words cannot express how blown away I was. And to Kokopoko who apparently dreamed about my fic... all sorts of amazing things have happened to me since the first chapter came out. And hugs and kisses to everybody who reviewed, detailed responses are on the review boards where you posted them. Go check them out if you haven't already. ;)


	3. Pay in Cash, No Questions Asked

**Title:** Bad Faith (03/?)  
**Author name:** Ace  
**Author email:** elel88_2000@hotmail.com  
**Category:** Action/Adventure  
**Sub Category:** Mystery  
**Keywords:** france drugs draco bad!harry  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** **IN WHICH**: Draco indulges in heavy sinning and displays his knowledge of wine tasting, waitresses in cheongsams serve dim sum, Hermione's boyfriend meets a rather happy, gay man at a party and has a martini, and Hermione makes an impressive, swear laden rant. Less sex, more death.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** There are Extremely Long Author's Notes at the end of this chapter, as with any chapter citing every possible source of inspiration. I do reply (mostly) to reviewers on the review boards so be sure to check back. If I have not, I am simply being the lazy arse I am and you should not worry.   
  
Now, go read. And pray for me.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Bad Faith**

**Chapter Three: Pay in Cash, No Questions Asked**

Draco wasn't sure how he found his way back to Harry's flat. And like so many things, he did not bother questioning it. After receiving a few funny looks from a conspicuously unwashed fellow, he hurried back as fast as his injuries allowed. He was too shaken to pay mind to the pain until he knocked.

His face hurt like hell.

When he placed one hand to his forehead, his fingers came away red and wet. Some glass fragments had probably got embedded in his skin, he thought. But he welcomed the physical aspect of the pain, the way it pressed and pounded like a rotten tooth. He didn't want to wake Harry up if he was sleeping, but he doubted that; Harry was more a nocturnal type.

"Who's it?" Harry's voice, sounding very pissed off.

"Draco." _The smelly git you picked off the street a few days ago who drank all your scotch,_ he was tempted to answer.

The door opened. Harry was flushed and tousled and from the looks of the half knotted bathrobe, he was probably naked underneath. Draco wondered if he had been taking a bath, or if he was if one of the strut-around-in-the-nude types. Either way, he was presented with some interesting images.

"What're you doing home so early?" He squinted and Draco realized he didn't have his bloody sunglasses on for once. "Is there something on your forehead?"

"I'm bleeding. Long story."

Harry made a vague motion toward the inside. "Come in."

"Did I catch you at a bad time?"

Harry sighed, pouring himself a brandy. "Post coital. She just left. I pay them to leave, not to stick around, after all." He sounded almost bitter, knocking back most of the glass in one gulp. Draco was impressed.

"A hooker?" Draco said and winced as a fresh burst of pain wrapped itself around his skull, squeezing unbearably around the temples. "Do you have any bandages?"

"In the bathroom. Help yourself. If it still hurts, I have something that might help."

Locating the bathroom wasn't too difficult, though he nearly ran into the wall twice. The bathroom was a large one with marble sinks, silver taps and racks of monogrammed towels. The wallpaper was a fabric-like shell pattern that was curling away at the edges from moisture, revealing the yellowed paste underneath. A set of double mirrors pulled open to show the medicine cabinet and Draco found a roll of bandages, placed next to the blue-capped bottle of Valium. He was tempted to take one to take the edge off.

Dabbing some wet tissue on his cuts in a weak attempt to clean off the blood, he gritted his teeth to keep from screaming, located the glass fragments and pulled them out, hard bloodied bits. The floor flickered white, and then black and he gripped the sink to keep from falling.

"All right?" Harry asked, sounding surly, when he came out.

"More or less. Still hurts a bit." _A lot._ "What's that thing you said could help..."

Squinting again, Harry fumbled on the table next to him and slid his sunglasses on. "On the counter," he said, sounding oddly disconnected, tasting something. "One or two lines should do it."

"Coke?"

"No. Pepsi, fuckwit. Of course it's coke."

The thought had an odd effect on him, an onslaught of memories so old they were more dreams than past realities. Back when school had been drawing to a close and he had done some heavy experimenting, hell, he'd done more than experiment... Harry had too, he remembered, both keeping their mouths shut unless they wanted to be expelled. _They_ had first taken his money, so much money that had always been there for him, gone...He'd gone to Harry when he couldn't bear it any longer, but Harry by then had not been much better off than Draco. _Help me,_ he'd said. And Harry had laughed at first, after all, was he really expected to help his enemy?

He took the drinking straw in one hand, hesitating for the briefest second, pressing one nostril closed, clenching his teeth, careful not to breathe on the powder...

His nose burned momentarily, as always, and then came the numbness, spreading to the roof of his mouth like expertly administered Novocain. He could no longer feel four of his top teeth, the foul drip, drip from his nasal cavity down his throat an acid reminder of the past.

The only way he could have described it was as a waking dream; everything was crisp, heightened, every thought brilliant in its entirety, energized, his brain sliding across a cocaine space, grasping every inflection, every theory, a clarity of thought. The strained fatigue of his rigid, controlled driving was gone, the high enveloping him in a twenty-minute heaven.

"Nice, isn't it?" Harry said distractedly, gazing at the ice cubes in his newly poured bourbon. He seemed to be sampling his own collection, an army of full and half filled bottles with a wooden rack of wine standing next to it. Narcissa had been very fond of wine; Malfoy Mansion had had an extensive wine cellar filled with Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon, and vintage wines, including one that was supposedly from Salazar Slytherin's own collection. Wizarding wine had a notoriously high alcohol content and was often supplemented with charms. Draco had once passed out and woken up levitated above the flower gardens after a sneaked drink from his father's bottle.

"It's amazing," he managed to say. "Fucking amazing."

On the glass topped table lay a stack of blue cigarette packages with the heavy, coarse tobacco of Spanish cigarettes. A superfine coating of dust lay on the glass, disrupted by wet shot glass rings and melting ice cubes. Harry held a tissue to his nose, blood seeping out.

Draco ran his fingers over the fake moss filled urns set on another table, feeling the texture with a doubled tactile sense. The delicious slide of the leather couch, the rapid beat of his heart sounding off, the familiar old urge to babble, and the warmth shared with most of the human race.

He could see a spark of interest in Harry's eyes, an attentive hunch of his shoulders, a pregnant pause he imagined.

"I had a bloody horrible time driving to _Tuttons_," he started. "Nearly ran over half the population. Really large glass windows, the waitress was nice but was acting strange after I finished my coffee; their coffee isn't bad either. I was going to order another one when she told me about the Mercedes and the manager waiting for me out in the car park..."

* * *

Hermione had dressed very slowly that morning, the morning after she had received the owl from the Ministry.

_...It has come to the Ministry's attention that you indulged in illegal and dangerous activities on the night of December 25__th__. The Ministry does not tolerate embezzlement and misuse of potentially harmful magical artifacts in any way. Not only have you violated the contract signed..._

Niall had chosen a wonderful day for a fight, a fucking brilliant day for a fight.

"It was Christmas, our third date, and I asked you why you looked so sad. And you told me about how your best friend had died that day on Christmas."

"What does that that have to do with anything?" She had the deer-in-the-headlights expression, her eyes fiercely angry in their defiance.

"He was more than your best friend, wasn't he."

Niall was always right.

"Fuck you," she snapped.

"I'm right, aren't I?" he prodded gently.

"What would you know? I didn't even know you back then. It's ancient history."

"Can't we talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"It's bothering you." With Hermione, the trick was to make sure she didn't explode like a popped balloon, but to let her deflate quietly. "I'm just concern-"

"Well, bloody don't be! It doesn't have anything to do with you!"

"It has everything to do with _us_!" He could feel the flush rising up his face. "Look, darling, let's not fight..."

"Then why did you bring it up?"

"I was just concerned."

"You don't have to be concerned for me."

Niall bit the inside of his cheek as hard he could. It was scarred there, knots and tendons of healed skin lining the flesh, the quick sting, the taste, the metallic spread. He tried to count them but the fights were all blurred together, like a building without walls, no beginning or end to them. A soap opera, love, hate, tragedy.

* * *

The barman was a slick young Asian, in a white shirt and black tie. His sleeves were rolled up and he held a toothpick between his lips that vibrated as he hummed. The crowd was mostly high-octane businessmen and off duty lawyers, all determined to put work behind them. They were doing quite a good job of it, too, Harry noted.

Two young women sat next to him on the red leather barstools, drinking cocktails and talking with the urgent efficiency of gossip. One had her back turned to him, a sheet of iron flat black hair falling across her bare shoulders.

Hung up on the ceiling were red paper lanterns with Chinese characters on them and Oriental prints of white-faced women in flowing silk garb. A screen embroidered with the long, sinuous bodies of dragons partitioned off a private room. The place was part bar, part restaurant, a trendy little find that had sprung up where the former store had been burned out. Waitresses in high collared cheongsams, slits up to the thigh, served platters of overpriced dim sum and dishes of soy sauce. A bull would have gone insane in here, the red infused in every fixture was overpowering. The Chinese didn't take any chances with their luck, he supposed.

Harry ordered a scotch; the barman grabbed a glass and poured it out of an almost empty bottle. Harry ran his fingers over the dark red wood of the bar top, freshly wiped. There was a sudden burst of laughter to his left. "He said that?" The shoulders shook and slender fingers stubbed out a cigarette on the countertop. It lay there, sighing smoke. "What a pillock, actually thinks you would..." at the thought, she broke into more giggles. The ice cubes sat in the bottom of his glass; staring at them, he tried to read them like tealeaves.

The sunglasses were falling down, resting halfway down the bridge of his nose. He pushed them up hurriedly, trying to relax and soak in the meaningless hum of chatter around him. Patchouli incense burned in a terra cotta holder set on the ledge, thin spirals of smoke rising and perfuming the air.

Harry scrutinized a man who had sat down in the seat next to him and saw his fingertips pressed white on the wood. He ordered another scotch, drinking most of it immediately. Dark hair, forgettable features, a face so easy to lose in the crowd he would have had trouble picking him out with a photograph in hand.

Harry watched the barman serve a few Oxford types in tapered trousers; they were animatedly discussing something, probably something boring. A waitress breezed past him leaving a cloud of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.

"Scotch, isn't it?" the man next to him said, a Ramrod Special in front of him.

He looked round, startled. "Hmm?"

"Your drink."

Harry looked down and his mind went blank for a moment. Odd. "Yes."

"What's your name?"

He drew on a long list. "James. James Porter," he said smoothly.

The man smiled, his thin lips spreading across his teeth. "I had a nephew by the name of Porter, all grown up now."

"That's nice." Harry took another drink, crushing the ice between his teeth. It felt good.

"Don't you know me?"

Harry looked at him again, wondering if it was a trick question. "No," he said finally, "should I?"

A hand was extended to him, dry and callused. "I'm Brian Wright. And you are Harry Potter."

* * *

"Black or gray?" Cho held up two men's jackets, the kind that could be picked up for twenty percent off in any department store. Pulling on a pair of thick wool socks that Molly had forced her to bring, Ginny didn't raise her eyes.

"Black," she said absently.

"You didn't even look."

"Does it matter?"

Cho pulled on the black coat. "No," she said, now wrapping a long scarf around her neck. "No, I suppose not."

The holster refused to fasten; it had either shrunk or she had put on weight. Ginny suspected it was the latter. She shoved in the wand and a small automatic pistol. Another wand was hidden in her boot and a new invention literally up her sleeves. Curse Cards. The latest the development team had come up with, right after their idea of carrying around Muggle weapons. "In case they take your wands," one explained, his voice so eager it was painful. "Migh' be useful, see, they won't expect it..." The Curse Cards, he explained, were voice summoned and could be thrown in defense.

They cast glamour charms. Cho looked like an aging actress this time, with an oddly beautiful bone structure beneath wrinkled skin. Her eyes still held an Asian slant but they were a lighter shade of brown.

"Been watching old movies again?" The effects of the glamour charm were mostly set in the subconscious and highly unpredictable.

"Just bought another glossy coffee table book on the Golden Age of Hollywood, saw it in the bookshop and I couldn't resist."

"We'll have to wean you off them when-" Ginny almost said _when we get home._ She wouldn't jinx them, she wouldn't.

Too preoccupied with her own holster to notice, Cho held the Muggle weapon in her hands with a bemused expression. "I never got the point of these," she said, turning it around in her hands, "Wands are so much more useful. You don't run out of bullets."

"Tell that to the development team. I swear, I want to wring Smithson's neck, he comes up with the most ridiculous things."

They took the plush carpeted lift to the _rez-de-chaussée_, selecting from a dizzying array of buttons. The hotel was in a state of suspended animation, the maids loitering round, chatting and half-heartedly folding sheets, receptionists reading thick novels, not a guest to be seen. The bracing winter burned their lungs when they stepped outside; late December was hitting record lows in Paris, with single digit and sub zero temperatures brought in by a bizarre weather system that was wrapping itself around Europe, east to west.

They were searching for a deserted alleyway to Apparate from when an old woman, and dressed in little better than a sack, and with her head wrapped in filthy rags, came rushing towards them, feverishly trying to convey something.

"_Mesdames! Aidez-moi! Ayez de la pitié!"_ A passerby glanced over with bored interest, assessing the sight as another everyday occurrence.

_. _

Ginny looked at Cho. "What is she saying?" Cho shrugged, trying to calm the woman in hysterics.

"_Morts! Morts! Une femme et un homme!_" she shrieked, grasping Ginny's arms with a chilling intensity, her fingers violet and corpse cold. "_Regardez!"_

A teenage boy in a dark gray coat, leaned up against a brick wall, his hair slicked back with grease, stared at the scene with amusement. He leaned in over something, his blue eyes meeting the gaze of none that looked at him. Exhaling, his mouth opened. "A crazy woman, mees..." His voice held a heavy French slur, one corner of his mouth twitching.

"Help us?" Ginny asked the boy. "What is she saying?" She silently cursed herself for not taking French in Hogwarts. The woman had sunk to the pavement in a grubby heap.

"_Morts, morts, froids comme glace..._" she murmured, rocking back and forth, hugging her knees like a child. Her ankles were naked and blue, laid out for the arctic air to claim. "_Morts... morts..._"

"Eet's not important." He smiled at them, more a grimace, and sunk deeper into his jacket. "Happens everyday."

"What is she saying?" She felt herself lunging out at him, her hands ready to pound some sense into his head. Cho gently held her back.

"We need to start," she reminded. "It's not going to get any warmer."

The boy said something to the woman in low, rapid French. He laughed, a short bark that set a stream of breath in the air. "Follow 'er, she will lead you."

"All right," Cho said reluctantly, "Can't be gone too long, remember."

The woman stood up with great difficulty. While not a mediwitch, Ginny knew the woman out in this cold was probably suffering from hypothermia and would lie down to sleep one night, one more cold night, and never wake up. They followed her down an alleyway, faded posters peeling off and snapping in the brisk wind, down a narrow street where tracks of ice had been created before the water reached the sewers. Stopping in front of a cluster of dustbins, the woman shivered. "_Regardez._"

A man and a woman, the former in a handsomely tailored suit and the latter in a jewel encrusted party dress, a black crochet shawl wrapped around her white limbs. A few people had gathered around them, chatting amiably as if they were at a theater function during intermission. The old woman seemed to be the only one bothered by the sight; a policeman wrapped in a heavy leather jacket, blue and yellow emblems sewn on the pockets, chatted with a few of the others, making no move to identify or move the bodies.

Cho knelt down and took off one glove, placing two fingers on the man's neck. "Gone," she said dully, "Cold as ice." They were both huddled in each other's arms, eyes closed. The heavy crimson on the woman's lips stood out like blood spatters on white paper. One false eyelash had fallen off, giving her face an oddly lopsided appearance.

A girl standing nearby leaned over, snatched the shawl from the dead woman's shoulders and put it around her own. Another girl stroked the black wool enviously, running the silky fringe between her blue tinged fingers, watching with a possessive glint beneath her painted eyelids, a streetwalker's swagger in her unformed hips. "_Jolie,_" she commented, eyeing the jeweled clips in the woman's hair. They reminded Ginny of vultures circling a carcass guarded by lions, swooping in, occasionally mustering the courage to taste.

Retreating from the scene, Cho had averted her eyes. "Come on, let's go..." Her fingers played with the collar of her jacket and the zipper, and she wasn't quite looking at anything. Shoving her hand in her pocket, Ginny pulled out a few notes and put them in the old woman's hands; she noticed arthritis had crippled the fingers into grotesque shapes. One note fluttered to the ground, a paper butterfly.

"Take them... buy food..."

They trudged along the street, lined with barbershops, well displayed convenience stores, and the occasional bakery. "There was something wrong about that," Cho burst. "Peaceful, my arse, this place is some sort of- of-" she stilled.

""Would Dupont lie about it? D'you think he's covering something up?"

"Covering up? I bet..." Cho said darkly. "Dead people in the streets, the police just standing around..."

An Art Nouveau styled underground entrance with a yellow "M" was only about twenty feet away. "Why don't we take the Metro?" Ginny suggested, pointing.

"Why? We can just Apparate." Cho had a look on her face as if Ginny had just declared she wanted to nail herself in a barrel and ship it to Greenland.

"You're right. Don't know what got into me there." With a discreet flick of her wand, Ginny recast the Heating Charms around both of them.

And in two small pops, both of them disappeared.

* * *

The high had worn off, the second one actually. Shitty was the only word that could describe how he felt.

Uncorking a bottle of wine, he poured himself a glass and swirled it around, fingers cupping the base. He smelled it first, then took a sip, letting it roll over his tongue, swallowing. Narcissa had taught him the proper way to taste wine back at her parties with lacquered society women who drank too much and talked too much, their layers slowly peeling away with every sip. Draco had watched from behind his raised glass, seeing the defenses crumbling.

The last lines of coke were gone, the remaining residue numbing the gums underneath his upper lip where he had put it. A rush of memory, a quick dream, almost fully realized, then passing, a glimpse into utopia that was then snatched from him, tasting it, touching it, never quite possessing it.

And he still remembered the drugged stupor of his last year at Hogwarts, too numb, too high to work, too proud to beg, for a while at least.

Cocaine to Draco was an exhilarating freefall, diving from the sky, the ground rushing up beneath him and swallowing him afterwards, a directly proportional low. The pain in his forehead had waned to a dull throb, the badly wrapped bandages slowly unraveling.

Harry, curiously enough, had not reacted badly to the news about the Mercedes. "I know an East End repair shop, pay in cash, no questions asked," was all he said before leaving for some dinner function. Draco was scared, or as close to it as he'd ever been. He was never scared; being scared was not something his body was capable of. _Run,_ his mind said. _Run like the fucking wind._

He'd been sleeping in the guest room for the past few days, not much different from staying in a sterilized hotel except there was no room service, just frozen waffles and avocado dip coupled with instant coffee. There was something about the place he could barely put his finger on until he came up with an absurd idea.

The flat didn't look like Harry lived in it. The rooms had been decorated in what could be department store displays, matching coverlets and pillows and framed pressed leaves that seemed more TV decorating show than Harry Potter. The bookshelves had meaningless, dry titles, only the obligatory set of Shakespeare and Dickens, a dictionary still in its shrink wrap covering, a few soft porn magazines strewn on top.

No photographs, knick-knacks, crusty seashells from the beach, cheap trinkets or certificates. Nothing broken, nothing out of place, nothing spilled, nothing remembered, the detached splendor of jewelry in a glass box, beautiful but without any warmth.

Transfixed by this thought, Draco searched through the rooms. He felt a passing guilt but had long learned how to suppress it. Guilt was a luxury that few who wanted to survive accepted. Harry wouldn't mind, he reasoned. Harry wouldn't even know, he didn't have to.

Logically starting in Harry's room, he found it furnished only with a bed and varnished chest filled with socks and underwear. The wardrobe held suits and slacks, all in perfect condition, all like skins waiting for an owner.

An empty lighter lay on the nightstand, a rubbish bin stood next to it containing nothing more than a few wadded up tissues, cartons, and last week's paper. "When Will it End?" read the headline, above a picture of a woman cradling a dead baby in her arms, a looming ash skeleton of a building set behind her. "Morton promises new measures, plan deemed too weak by many," was printed beneath the tall, bold words. Draco almost smiled.

He went into Harry's study, where a messy sprawl of paper covered the desk. _Jackpot._ But it was nothing more than hastily dashed off memos that meant absolutely nothing to him, nonsensical messages in Harry's spiky handwriting. Pulling out the drawer, Draco froze.

The gun in the glove compartment was not the only one Harry owned.

And a wand, like a passing curiosity. Draco's wand, actually. He snatched it up indignantly, wondering why Harry hadn't given it back to him. It was odd; wands to him were in the league of antique curios and relics from a bygone era. The other wands, he guessed, had been picked up from the wizarding black market, more sinister than Knockturn Alley and operated by corrupt businessman.

He placed his fingers on the wand. _Almost lost you there, mate._ Twice. When the Ministry had come for him, he had had a mountain of legal barriers and paperwork waiting. He had burned all the dark arts items under the drawing room and Obliviated every last house elf. They hadn't taken his wand; he'd managed that much.

He shoved it in his pocket, then put it back in the desk.

A search of the other rooms turned up nothing more than blank notebooks, not even a receipt was to be found in the maddening neatness. A stack of old newspapers, the crosswords half filled in and a brown ring of coffee on the front page, lay on the table.

"Charing Cross Bombed, 15 Dead," it read, a close up shot of a dying face, grim, sooty firemen pulling through rubble. It was an odd contrast, half of the station in perfect condition, the other half leveled.

He flipped through, skipping the disaster pictures, an almost casual death reflected in them taken by an impassive photographer. He skimmed an article on a lawsuit against Internet porn, another on the new crop of gay actors, and the continued box office failure of war epics. As he refolded the paper and placed it on top of the pile, a small title caught his eye.

_Exclusive Report on Britain's Crime Kings,_ it read, and Draco wondered if Finnigan had been included. Certainly the Adams family, they always made the top list of any article he read. He picked up the newspaper, shook it open and started to read.

It was concise and deadly in its accuracy, so much so that it made Draco squirm as if the reporter was routing him out. Finnigan received a small nod, the Adams family a paragraph, but the author was obviously most excited over the fresh blood spilt by Brian Wright.

_Brian Wright, 34, the man suspected to be behind some of the most brutal massacres in Britain's history, including the Brighton Bombings, and known to run a number of illegal gambling rings, money laundering operations, extortion, and a multi billion euro bootlegging racket. Most infamous for the 2008 seizure of five tons of Colombian cocaine with a street value of €170m, Wright was put on trial only to have charges dropped three months later due to lack of evidence. Arrested again last year by British police for triple homicide, he made a high profile escape from maximum security Shotts prison in Lanarkshire, Scotland and has eluded the police in an ongoing search. He was last seen in Cyprus._

Beneath the article was a small, grainy photograph, half the face covered in shadow. It could have been anybody, but Draco detected an ease of mind on the lips, a casual lean of the shoulders. Not an easily intimidated man.

He read the article again, recalling the chaos of the Brighton Bombings. Draco had been in Sussex at that time, smoking hashish in a tiny, rented cottage paid for with his informant funds. At fifty Euros a day, it was a steal; as long as he didn't bother the neighbors and cleared the rooms of any suspicious paraphernalia, no one gave a shit about what he did. The street had been lined with tacky bed and breakfasts that served orange juice in cans and rolls for breakfast and catered for tourists shuttled around by tour guides. They had all left when the news had come; all the airports had been tied up that entire bloody week and it wasn't just travelers from abroad who had left. Draco had been too concerned about his depleting stash to think too much about it.

He was reminded for weeks and weeks afterwards to his dismay, pictures of smoky rubble and gray bodies running. How many had died? Hundreds? Thousands? Never caught the culprit, not that the attempt was half-arsed in any way. On the train back to London, names had been whispered. Italian mobsters, Middle Eastern terrorists, perhaps a rabid commie.

Brian Wright - they had passed over him with a light touch; after all, the possibilities were endless. Not a scrap of evidence left behind, a spotty teenager had mused, clearly over the tragic part and having a grand time theorizing. _Not a scrap of evidence left behind, not unless you counted the bombed out buildings and the casualties. Not a trace..._

Draco folded the paper shut and snapped the pages. It was 10:30, Harry should be coming back to the flat soon and he had to make sure he hadn't left any evidence behind. Just like the bombings.

* * *

"Must we, darling? You know I enjoy these things as much as being buried alive..."

It was the conversation they had had before leaving for Ruth Shoreham's semi annual gathering, mostly filled with intellectuals and philosophers, tweedy, pipe smoking, scalding critics. No-nonsense people, stubborn as hell, (Niall had dared argue once and nearly had his nose hexed off) and about as much appeal among the lot of them as raw carrots.

Ruth would have been nice looking, Niall thought, had it not been for the severe cut of her hair or the dress so proper not even Puritans could have disapproved of it. "Hermione," she greeted them. "And you're... Neil. How wonderful you could make it." Her eyes were suddenly alight with a glittery fascination that made him very uncomfortable. Hermione handed her the wine Niall had picked up on his way back from work.

"Beaujolais, your favorite."

They were ushered into a room covered with modern art prints that Niall had never been able to understand. The air was dimmed in one corner by Cary Reeve's expert smoke rings. A group in another corner was in a heated argument over something, another two discussing the translations of Rowena Ravenclaw's Russian cousin's journal. Hermione entered the scene easily, quickly grabbing a drink and joining a group.

Niall wasn't paying attention; he nodded politely before drifting off to the bathroom. After finishing, he leaned against the wall outside, watching the painting of Marie Faye-Fournier that sulked and pouted at him from beneath her sparse eyebrows. There was another man there now, in carefully ironed slacks and a blue shirt tucked into his trousers.

"Hullo," the man said gloomily. He, too, was holding a martini. "Nice party, isn't it?"

Niall shrugged. "I suppose. Not my type of thing."

"Me neither."

"What's your name?"

"Niall Havish, yours?" He swirled the olive around in his glass, watching it roll around.

"Susan Jones." His shoulder slumped, almost imperceptibly and he took a drink. A gust of warm air brushed past his knees.

"Pardon?" Poor bloke, must have had a rather unhappy experience at school.

He grimaced. "Yeah, well, my parents were sadistic people."

"Sorry." Not sure what else to say, Niall tried changing the subject. "Must be tough. How do you know Ruth?"

"Ruth?" Susan said blankly. "Who's Ruth?"

"The hostess. The lady of the house."

Susan smiled, the dimple in his left cheek forming. He gave off a kind of optimistic energy, like a pop dance beat. "I'm here with my boyfriend. Little git deserted me five minutes ago when I didn't know the difference between Tolstoy and toadstools," he added. "Don't blame him. Must be embarrassing to cart around such an ignoramus as me."

"I'm here with Hermione, she's talking-"

"Hermione Granger?"

"Do you know her?" Susan had the happy-go-lucky air of a professional clubber. He ran his fingers through the frosted tips of his hair and smiled, so sincerely and easily it caught Niall off guard.

"You could say that. She's fucking brilliant. Too bad about the Ministry, work and all, the pillocks don't know what they just lost. They'll be crawling back any minute."

Niall shifted his weight to his other foot, staring very pointedly at the olive. "Well, you know, things are just..."

"Fucked up."

"Yeah. You could say that."

Susan smiled. "Cheer up. Dunno why Malcolm drags me along to every dusty function he gets invited to, poor bloke doesn't have any networking skills anyway." He winked, placing one hand on the wall next to him and taking a more comfortable position.

"Same with Hermione, doesn't matter how much I try to convince her I don't fit in with these... people."

"Their intelligence is killing me," Susan agreed, pointing to his head. "I'd rather get hammered and call it a night."

Niall heard the pat, pat of footsteps on the carpet, just before Hermione rushed at him in a blur of violet and hair.

"Something wrong?" he asked, rather bewildered.

"...fuck...them..." was all he made out.

"What happened?" Susan, he noticed, had shifted positions again and was watching with a new interest.

"Raymond- Lucy- everybody," Hermione spat. "All of them are Ministry Nazis, next thing you know, they'll be accusing _me_ of the Brighton Bombings..."

"Calm down, darling, I'm sure it wasn't that bad-"

"Wasn't that bad? For fucksakes, Niall, Raymond practically said I used the Time Turner to kill children in cold blood!" she hissed, completely oblivious to Susan.

"You know, maybe we should go home, I'll make some coffee..." he placed his arm around her waist and half-waved to Susan who smiled and waved back.

_Good luck,_ he mouthed to him, or maybe it was _borscht,_ though Niall doubted it. That was the last he saw of Mr. Jones, at least for a while.

* * *

"Stupid... stupid..." Cho kicked the brick wall of a shop. "I can't even feel my toes. Could you zap up the Heating Charm again?"

"You know," said Ginny mildly, "I think we are in a hopeless situation."

They had spent the last two hours searching in the 13th Arrondissement. Their compressed volume of Paris history informed them it had formerly been a cholera plagued slum, but other than that, it hadn't provided any useful information. Their search had turned up a store with a nice jacket and a senile man in a moldy fur coat trying to sell them opened packages of batteries.

"The problem is that we don't know what we're supposed to be looking for." They walked down another frozen alleyway, an ad for an ancient movie papered up on the wall no one had ever got around to changing. "A person? A building? A specific type of magic? And of course, we could have walked right past it and never known because I'd bet my grandmother that they have dark magic protecting it."

"Rather pointless, isn't it? And we're not even sure if this place is in the 13th Arrondissement. There might be a radical new breed of villain who will bravely defy convention and break the evil number tradition and set up shop in say, the 7th Arrondissement."

Cho shrugged. "I doubt it. Evil people are usually pretty predictable creatures. I could set up a spell that reveals wards, only problem is that it makes them glow red and with all the Muggles around, that might cause a bit of a commotion."

"Can't... can't... you make them sing or something?" Ginny asked, in a lame attempt at humor.

"That would be worse. Wards suddenly playing Broadway show tunes_._ Not to mention, some wards don't show up on this kind of sweep. Probably wouldn't work even if we evacuated the place."

"Let's go over it-"

"... again, for the forty-third time."

The sky was still a flat gray. "Fourteen Ministry workers dead. Unmarked. The Butcher's Bag. Something about testing and a shipment."

"Maybe they're awaiting a shipment of makeup to test on poor, innocent rabbits," Cho said hopefully. "That wouldn't be so bad."

"Tell that to PETA. Anyway, Dupont told us that it was _probably_ in the 13th and that Aurors had conducted searches before."

"Wonder what happened to them." Abandoning the watchful, guarded stance drilled into her, Cho shoved her hands deeper into the coat pockets. Cold seemed to have that effect. The wand twirled between her fingers, endless hours of curse and hex throwing, hand to hand combat and fencing lessons scrambled up in her mind. She liked being ready, alert, but the numbness that invaded her body was stealing it.

"Wonder..." Spotting a half full café, nobody out on the terrace, she pointed to it. "Let's warm up."

When they stepped inside, clusters of well-wrapped men and women were gathered at tables, speaking in hushed tones. A few pored over newspapers, holding cups of coffee or chocolate; one punched away at his Pocket Internet with a furious speed. Not one lay idle, a low hum of activity filled the air.

They both agreed on something hot, something chocolate. Cho did the ordering and Ginny pulled out the petty cash they had been allotted. Her gloved fingers pushed the notes across to the paunchy fingers of the cashier, a gold band on his pinky that grabbed the money greedily, like sweets. He counted them carefully, holding one up to the light, and slipped them inside the cash register. It had been bolted down and had chains snaking around it, an electrical field that was currently turned off.

They sat down with their mugs, and Ginny stared out the window. It looked more romantic from the inside, watching the outside, having a sort of nineteenth century quality, almost gone because of urban development, boarded and painted over, giant ads hawking perfume, deodorant, men's shoes, blinking logos competing for customers. A flash of graceful leg, red lips, stomach. _You can be beautiful like us,_ they were saying, and for a moment Ginny almost believed their crap. Almost. The chocolate settling in her stomach, Cho gave a sleepy sigh.

Shifting in her seat, the pistol pressed against her hip. The feeling was slowly coming back into her fingertips, they buzzed and ached like her defrosting toes. "Would I feel any less guilty if I stood outside?"

Cho shrugged again. "I suppose. But you'd be freezing your arse off and chances are you wouldn't find anything anyway. Hey, cheer up, Gin. Today's only the first day. Cut yourself some slack, we have some interviews scheduled tomorrow. Maybe we'll find something new out tomorrow."

A gust of arctic wind blew in, as a man entered. A few shot him dirty looks, others just shivered. His hair was frozen into spikes, probably from failing to dry his hair after a shower. Staring at him distractedly, Ginny rubbed her arms. "D'you think the interviews will be any help? Would they know anything more?"

"Maybe not about the murders, but we might learn more about the victims. Figure out if they're connected in some way the French Ministry hasn't found out."

"Are they even murders?"

"You know, I never considered that." Cho crossed her legs the other way. "Fourteen people, all from the Ministry, just dropping dead." She snapped her fingers. "Like that. Dead. The question is, how could they not be murders?"

"Just a thought. But the whole business just reeks of something fishy. Normally, I'd say it was just another mass AK like that massacre in Russia with the Swiss ambassadors, but that method is awfully risky and has magic written all over it. Has the potential for world destruction, as well, if things get too out of hand."

"Too many people on the world destruction bandwagon, anyway. Dupont seems awfully ready to accept the idea that this Brian Wright is behind it, as well, based on very little evidence as far as I can see, unless he's withholding something..."

"Plus a pretty shoddy explanation for why he wants us. I'm surprised the Ministry even agreed to lend us out. Britain is a disaster every two weeks, with a replay of the Brighton Bombings every two months. We're having enough trouble keeping London from dissolving into chaos, much less Paris. Heard the British PM doesn't like Dupont much, he called him a superstitious git."

Cho rubbed her eyes, yawning. "Seems almost commonplace now."

"Know anything about France? I haven't been paying much attention to international affairs lately."

"You cleaned up that big mess in '08 by some Parisian radicals- in Germany, I think. What was it?"

"A lot of people dead." Ginny said dryly. "Besides that, I've been mostly battling evil on the home turf. This morning-" she hesitated, thinking of the frozen man and woman.

"What?"

"Never mind... oh, I was just thinking about the people we found. I was disturbed by it, you would think I'm used to it by now, right?"

"Maybe it was because they weren't blown to small, bloody bits?" Cho suggested helpfully.

"No, not that." She blinked, looking out the window again. "We should go out and conduct our futile search again."

"Must we? Let's just Apparate back to the alleyway next to the hotel and get room service, rack up a huge bill, and let the Ministry pay for it." Cho was joking, they both knew they would suffer for a few more hours before giving up for the day.

* * *

He took her to _Anemos_, her favorite restaurant. "Now," he said very gently, "tell me what happened."

Gulping her coffee, she started off. "Nerves, it's like a red scare all over again." She pulled a newspaper clipping from the Daily Prophet out of her purse and slammed it down on the table. "This," she hissed, "was an article written about me after the Daily Prophet found out about _it_."

The headline read, "Hermione Granger Found Guilty of Embezzlement."

"Embezzlement?" He scanned the text quickly. "Tabloid trash. Sensationalized reporting, sad how they try to earn a Knut these days," hoping to console her.

"Well, Lucy got her hands on this gem and you know how _she_ is-" Niall didn't know, but he was afraid to ask, "-and she showed it to Raymond, the one who pulled you out of the pool last summer at Club Nautico, remember him? He used to be all best mate with me, now he thinks I'm just some sort of- some sort of- thief, for fucksakes, he was saying how awfully funny with all the trouble about the new PM lately, as if the fucking _Time Turner_ had something to do with it. Time Turner! Time Turner! Now tell me, what the fuck does the Time Turner have to do with anything? Asked him that too and then everybody was grabbing at the article, everybody just reading it and I couldn't do a _single fucking thing._ Not a fucking thing." She proceeded to call Raymond a number of names that would have made Niall's mother roll over in her grave.

This night, the restaurant wasn't too full but several patrons looked at Hermione, some amused, some annoyed.

"Calm down, darling-"

"No! I refuse to calm down!" The mug wobbled on the table. "I lost my bloody job and on top of _that_, as if that kick in the arse wasn't enough, all my so-called friends, the entire lot of them, think I'm a child killer. They think I run South American brothels and bomb small villages for fun during coffee break!"

"Hermione-"

"Niall, don't you understand? Everything, fucking _everything_ is gone-"

"Hermione-" It was useless to argue. Her nails were clenched into her fists, her voice steadily growing higher and higher. A waiter was walking towards them, a quick skip in his walk.

"Miss," he said, "some of the customers are complaining that-"

"Shut the fuck up!"

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave if you can't calm down. Now please..."

Grabbing Hermione's arm, Niall mouthed an apology to the waiter. "We'll be going now."

He flagged down a bus filled with a rowdy crowd that laughed too loudly. Sitting down, Hermione looked very prim and stiff, like a paper doll. She pressed her hand to the glass of the window, watching the street lights and neon pass by in fluorescent streams; the back of her head had strands of loosened hair running down her neck; she turned towards him. "I really fucked up this time, didn't I?" she said sadly.

Placing one arm behind her shoulders, he pulled her in closer. "Nah." The warmth of her skin felt nice, very nice. "We'll just have to find another place for dinner."

The seats behind them creaked and hoots of laughter broke the temporary silence. "Put your shirt back on!" a female voice said.

"Make coffee for me when we get home, Niall, lots of coffee..." She closed her eyes. "You can drink the wine we were saving for our anniversary next month. Four years, like forever..." Shifting over, the light caught the necklace he had bought in Jamaica, the one with the pearls and bits of carved wood. "... promise I'll make it up to you. I'll cook my own breakfast. I'll cook yours too and wake up early, you won't have to always set the clock. I'll stop being such an arse, I'll change... I'll get a new job..."

Niall stared ahead, the dim flickering light was little comfort. He could see the bus driver's cap, the stickers informing them of safety hazards. Hermione's head rested on his shoulder, bobbing like a rag doll when the bus rolled over a bump. So dark outside, except for the signs that glowed, sequins on a dress caught in a flashing light, racing forward. The bus stopped, making a hissing noise; the door opening. Two men in ski masks boarded, one with a knife held at the bus driver's throat, the other walking towards them.

Gimme yer money, he growled, they all dug into their wallets and purses, he collected notes, took a woman's ring, a man's watch. He watched their tired, impassive faces, having nothing to do with age or fatigue. They handed over whatever he demanded of them with the martyred air of a child taking medicine, his light blue eyes skittering from one person to the next, then behind him. As he drew closer, Niall could see the black light of the pistol. Hermione's eyes opened.

What's going on, she asked, then saw them. The man grabbed at her necklace, it broke far too easily, cheap tourist shit, the man muttered, the beads clacking and rolling like pieces of dried bone. He took her purse, nothing in there but makeup, tissues, and a half used gift card.

Niall still stared ahead but tightened his hold on Hermione. _They won't take you,_ he willed. A little girl was crying, so high and loud he couldn't bear it. Her mother shushed her with a finger to the lips. They mustn't cry, she told her.

* * *

Read? Review!

**Additional Author's Notes:** Some bits influenced from crime novels, most notably _Cocaine Nights_ and _Glitz,_ (especially in the upcoming chapter). "Age or fatigue" stolen from _Nights._ Drug use scenes with help from a huge number of sources, all hashed together. The French woman just says, "Dead! Dead! Cold as ice!" and "Help me! Have pity!" something like that. The girls in that scene were _Lolita_ inspired as well as "raw carrots". The Chinese themed bar was lifted from a television segment on CCTV called "The World of Suzie Wong". Parts about wine and wine tasting were written with help from _Wine for Dummies._ Restaurant was taken from _Frommer's Travel Guide to England._ Arrondissements are like "villages" of Paris, but not quite. The original title for this chapter was "Which Arrondissement is Yours?" but I figured this one was more catchy.

I'm truly shocked at the response I've gotten. I honestly wasn't expecting anybody to stay on for chapter two, much less even have much interest for chapter one. I love every last one of you, I've met so many incredible people which is one the reasons I'm even bothering to continue this. You are all amazing. Again, thanks to my beta Kate who also checked the French and Ursula who is both my Alcohol and Sordid Sex Beta. I don thee The Order of the Bad Faith.

If you're interested for any updates, I set up a website: __ mainly for the fun of it. Stay tuned! : )


	4. Taking it to the Cleaners

**Title:** Bad Faith (04/?)  
**Author name:** Ace  
**Author email:** elel88_2000@hotmail.com  
**Category:** Action/Adventure  
**Sub Category:** Drama  
**Keywords:** dark!Harry crime futurefic  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** Set in Muggle London, 2010, a chance encounter between Draco Malfoy and the infamous Harry Potter is on a collision course to disaster. In this chapter, mysterious villains make an appearance, somebody collects Maxim magazines, Draco is offered biscotti, and Ginny wishes she hadn't worn so much clothing.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** There are proper author notes at the end where I no longer attempt to sound smart. Whew.  
  
Also mentioned there, but noteworthy here, is that if you'd like to continue receiving updates/cookies/notices of any of my fics, you might want to sign up at the Bad Faith Yahoo group. Thanks again to all you, for some reason, decided to stay on for the ride. It means a lot.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**BAD FAITH**

**Chapter Four**

**TAKING IT TO THE CLEANERS**

The day he was killed, there were far more pressing matters on his mind. For the last twenty-three months.

Sex. Guilt. Sex. Guilt. More guilt. It was seeing his wife at night peeling carrots over the sink and wishing he hadn't. It was seeing his mum and dad coming over for dinner, still holding hands. Look at us. We're happily married. _What the fuck is wrong with you?_

_Hampstead, please. And be quick about it. _Just yesterday. _Neal Street, Covent Garden._ Working his arse sore driving other people around every day, packing luggage, battling the traffic. He put food on the table, paid the rent, even though it was hell. Just grin and bear it. Grin and bear it. It's for the best.

He didn't want to care at first, always coming home late at night, making excuses all the time, because it felt so good. Really good, the first kind of good he'd felt since his wife had had their third child and wasn't in the mood any longer. It hadn't been that bad at first. There was no sign by the third month, though, none at all, just nights of sultry hot heat, sheets sticking to his back and legs, their stomachs never brushing.

He was watching the bank account grow so slowly, saving every last penny for that car he'd seen in the dealership so long ago. _I love you_, she would say then, something they both hadn't said to each other in a long time, they'd travel the world in that car, she'd be laughing, brown hair blowing back, those white sunglasses she used to wear during her University days falling down her nose. _I love you, too._

Fingers pressed on the steering wheel, he hated himself. Later, he would remember stopping the cab to pick up two blokes, one was in a suit, Armani maybe, though he didn't know too much about clothing. The other looked like another one of those stupid American pillocks who went to Britain so he could brag about it to his friends when he got back, like a double dare. _I've been to Bloody Bloody Britain and back._ Camera bag slung over his shoulder, shades over his eyes, a baseball cap with Knicks sewed on it. He clambered in, all arms and legs.

"Will he be there?" the man in the suit asked, glancing at the other.

The American said, "He better be."

They were smooth. Straight away, he answered. Of course, sir. Anything you want. I can drive you to the fucking moon, if you like.

He didn't see death coming. He was too busy seeing what he had seen that morning, again, and again, and again.

"You look great, darling." First fucking thing he'd said to her that day. Seven o'clock.

She hadn't answered. And then, she had said, "I know."

"Know what?"

He had frozen, he had thought it was about letting Jackson come with him to Mark's last Tuesday, she would get really pissed off about that, he had suspected, so he opened his mouth to explain that the sitter had been off with the flu and the blokes there had all been clean, and Jackson had had pie and told knock-knock jokes to old Fordham, the one who never smiled but Jackson got him to smile and wasn't that great?

But she had said, "I know about Greta." She continued. "I know there were more than just Greta. And that it's been going on for a while."

And then the moment of truth. "How long has it been going on?"

He had answered, dumbstruck. "Since you gave birth to Madeline." He had been counting the months and days, trying to justify what he was doing. Twenty-three months. That was an awful long time for him to wait.

"Since we stopped making love." She was still sitting there, holding a grubby envelope, the big orange kind he stuck papers in when he didn't want to fold them. Opening it, she pulled out some photographs, crystal fucking clear shots of him and Greta sitting in her car, the beat up red Nova with the squeaky seat, him and Greta kissing, his tongue shoved down her throat. Funny thing was, he had never been less attracted to Greta at that moment, would take back every moment just so this wasn't happening now. There was dirt on his skin, roaches crawling all over it, spit on his chest, he had to wash it off but he _couldn't_.

He wanted to forget.

One of the men in the seat behind him pulled something out, sounding like paper rustling. "That's him."

"And the bird?"

"Don't know. I think she works for him." A cough. He gripped the steering wheel even tighter, staring at the red light.

He couldn't forget that morning.

"It didn't mean anything," he had said. Then she looked angry, she pulled out his drawers with his clothes and underwear in them. "What are you doing?"

"You're leaving, " she had said, dragged out his suitcase, the one he hadn't used in years. "You're moving out."

He made a right turn, looking back at the two men. He could drive there blindfolded with the car in reverse, anywhere in London, he knew the way. Anywhere. The steering wheel was heating up beneath his fingers, suddenly it was so hot he could barely touch it, and _thank God_ he was there. Some posh-looking building, a lot of granite and gold colored metal.

The American said, "You sure it's here?"

He said, "Yes." Death was closer but he still didn't know it; it was almost choking him.

Death was on the backseat.

It was the photo one of them had left, flipped over and partially shoved into a seat crack. Like a fool, he pulled it out and found it was a picture of some dead man - he was so pale, eyelashes stuck together with the eyeball whites showing - on the back, it read "12/14," he didn't know what it meant, didn't really want to.

He rolled down the window, shouting, "Hey!"

"This yours?" he asked one of the men when they stepped back in.

"Where the fuck did you get that?" The man in the suit was looking at him different, like he was dangerous, maybe. A threat.

"Found it there." He pointed to the back of the taxi. "The guy you knocked off last month?" Maybe it would make the man smile, stop looking at him in that way - it was making him uncomfortable. As if he'd done something wrong.

The American swore and a hand went inside his camera bag. He pulled out what looked like a gun. A gun, a big fucking gun. Tourists usually don't have those.

"You didn't see anything," and it was poking into the back of his head, cold, hard. He wondered if it would make a clean shot if the man decided to kill him.

"Can't risk it," the man in the suit said to the American. "Just get rid of him."

"Who are you?" he asked, and for the briefest second, he didn't think about his kids or how badly he'd fucked up, which is pretty badly indeed.

"Brian Wright," the tourist said, must be some coincidence, he thought, just like the man on the wanted poster last time he went to the post office, only it's hard to tell if they're the same person because of the sunglasses and the hat. Didn't look like a killer.

The tourist pulled the trigger, and he was breezing down a sunny road, the sky was blue, and he was sitting in a red sports car, his wife was smiling. _I love you_, she mouthed. Life was good.

* * *

Ginny blinked at the house in front of her. She was sure, very sure, that this could not possibly be in France, could not possibly exist anywhere near France. Glancing down, she made sure all her limbs were properly in place. Not splinched. _Damn._ It would have explained something, at least.

Cho had her hand by her side, hovering above her wand. "Right," she said, looking over at Ginny, sounding equally surprised. "Is this the place?"

"I suppose so."

"A change of atmosphere," Cho started cautiously, "a very large change in atmosphere."

"Temperature," Ginny said and removed her gloves, wishing she hadn't worn her jumper. "What is this, the bloody Bahamas?"

"According to the address, we're in France. I was under the impression it would be colder here - we're not that far away from the hotel..." Her eyes passed over the sweeping, curved lines of the building, the glinting pavement, and finally, the white sun. "It's nice."

Ginny found herself removing her heavy jacket and hat as they walked up the wide stairs. "This is Philippe Lambert we're interviewing, right?" She assumed it was because before Cho could answer, the door opened.

A dark haired woman in a white pantsuit with a blue scarf around her neck ushered them into a different room. Cho said something in French to her and the woman replied.

"What now?" Ginny asked.

"We just have to wait a few minutes..."

A few fruit trees grew from a sort of indoor garden and a collection of antique Quidditch brooms were displayed in a glass case that hung suspended a few inches off the ground.

From the glass wall, she could see the impressive landscaping and carefully mowed grass. Ginny had become almost used to the grayness and the relentless cold air; it felt oddly unreal, as if she was walking on the surface of the moon. This was going to be interesting.

* * *

Harry had muttered something about going for a walk and dropped Draco off, telling him only to meet him later by the red building. Watching the car leave and wishing Harry had left more detailed instructions, Draco noticed that the area around him looked oddly familiar.

"Tea?" Edwin offered. He set out a clinking set of mismatched teacups, some knockoff antiques from Camden Market with blue enamel flowers lining the edges; he made his with teabags, packaged in a pink cardboard box that read orange spice.

Draco wrapped his hands around the cup, watching the amber seep into the water.

"Bad weather," Edwin remarked, pouring exactly to the rim. "The ceiling is leaking again," he said, pointing to a battered tin bucket set under a drip.

"Isn't it always?"

"The ceiling? Oh, of course."

"I meant the weather." He blew on the tea and took a sip. A little strong but it scorched his throat the way he liked it.

Edwin sat down behind his desk, shoving a pile of newspapers aside, all with decidedly tragic headlines. He continued the pleasant small talk. "Did you play any sports at school?"

A warning light went off in Draco's mind but covered in the sweet fog that enveloped his senses, it went by unnoticed. "Quidditch. I was a Seeker."

"You don't say. Never heard of Quidditch. Is it anything like cricket?"

Draco took another swallow of tea. "You play it on brooms. And there are all these balls..." _That lovely, gold shine on the wet grass of the pitch, so far away. The adrenaline rush, the rain soaked ground brushing just past his knees as he dived... pointing the broomstick in an edge to the wind..._

Edwin raised one eyebrow. "Broomsticks?"

Draco nodded, running his tongue over his upper lip. "Broomsticks."

"You'll have to show me sometime."

A delicious eddy of warmth wrapped itself around the base of his spine and he stared at the falling water - the world's smallest rain shower.

"So," he snapped into a businesslike tone, "what brings you here?"

"Harry Potter."

"Would you like me to send him a decoy? Surveillance?" He sounded almost sarcastic.

"No."

"More tea?"

"Yes."

Edwin poured more into his cup, tendrils of steam moistening Draco's fingers and lips and the spot beneath his chin. "I just came to talk."

"We can talk. About Harry, you mean."

"Yes. About Harry." Harry, Harry, Harry. Everything in the past few days had been about Harry, everything he ate, everything he wore, everything he saw. The fluorescent lights flickered for a moment, a low, broken hum emitting from the dented radiator.

"You're friends with Harry?" Edwin said, toying with his cup, the tea untouched, and sighed a little. He closed his eyes for a brief moment.

"Yes. No." Feeling confused, he squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to right himself. "I don't know," he admitted. "It's complicated."

"Any reason you're running to a stranger?"

"I just thought you'd know something."

"Everybody knows something about him, Draco."

"I thought you'd know something more."

Edwin laughed, a short bark. "There are 126 more Edwins in the phone book. Just run your finger down the page. That's me."

Draco had the feeling he'd said this before, or at least thought it. "You've known Harry since he left school, though," he said, sounding surer than he felt. "I think you have."

As Edwin stood up, the slightly uneven tray shuddered. "Harry and I... What can I say? I know some things, I suppose."

"What sort of things?"

"Mind if I smoke?" he asked, not answering Draco's question. He was already lighting up; Draco felt the need as well, the first smoke of the day was always the best, the way it filled his lungs and steadied his hands. He pulled out the pack he had stolen from Harry's car and cajoled a flame from the red lighter.

"Those aren't yours." It was a casual comment.

The cigarette dangled from his mouth, burning orange. "How do you know?"

"They're too posh. You probably filched them from a shop or somebody else. You're the type who drinks cheap lager and spends all their money on drugs."

"Close enough." Feeling insulted, he shoved the pack back into his pocket. "I wasn't always this way, you know," he said, making a gesture in the air, cigarette held between his index and middle finger. "I was a _Malfoy_." It tasted bitter.

"Aren't you still?"

"I suppose. It's complicated."

"You said that already," Edwin remarked through a growing cloud of smoke. He leaned back in his chair. "Try me."

"A fall from grace." He struggled for a comparison, but none seemed dramatic enough. "I used to have money, old money, the kind from generations and generations of living in a proper, aristocratic family where the husband and wife shag everything that moves except each other." He breathed in through his nose, his chest rising and falling slowly.

"What happened then?" Draco fancied he saw a spark of interest in Edwin's black eyes, so dark the pupil melted into the iris.

The effects of the tea were dulling and something cold snaked its way up his leg. "Things. People. The government."

"Taxes weren't that bad, were they?" Edwin smiled.

It was Draco's turn to laugh. "My parents were well-trained in that sort of deal. We had a sort of immunity. My dad was friends with Ministry officials with their political futures shoved up their arse; they knew about it, all right. He always told me to shove some money in their pocket if I wanted anything, worked for him just fine."

They were both quiet for a moment. "About Harry," Edwin said. "What exactly do you want to know?"

"What he's like. I'm such a bloody idiot, can't figure out people for the life of me, can never figure it out until it's too late to do anything. Haven't seen the bloke in twelve or thirteen years... lost count there. Just want to know what he's up to," he finished lamely.

"How well did you know Harry, anyway?"

"You go first." Draco felt oddly reluctant to talk.

Edwin shrugged, stretching his arms behind him to loosen his muscles. "Met him by accident, wandered up from the street somehow, completely pissed out of his skull. Passed out in the hallway, where I found him and dragged him into my office. When he came to, we talked a little and it turned out we had a few things in common. Met for a few drinks, sort of became a tradition, I suppose. He started in business of sorts, I helped him out once in a while, he became more successful and I didn't. We got on well together," he said, something strange in his voice. "The start of a beautiful friendship."

"And then?"

"Very agreeable fellow when he's got something illegal in his system," he replied, not answering Draco's question. "Wouldn't want to work under him, though. Nearly fanatical about everything, has plenty of axes to grind and money to throw around."

Draco felt troubled. "Was he always that way for you?"

"No," he said finally. "He got worse over the years, or better, depending on how you look at it. A lot of people who've been around him have died-" at this, the first thing that came to Draco's mind was Ron, "-and he's had to do a lot to get by."

"What does he do?"

Edwin's face closed, as if a book had just been shut. "Many things. He's taste tested every option out there, I'm guessing."

"... all of them illegal, I imagine?"

"Well, not on paper. For most of them."

"What does he do now?"

"He does dirty work sometimes, not as often, though. He doesn't need to. He makes so much money each go around, he just keeps his hand on his group-"

"Group?"

"People he's close to, pretty low profile for the most part." Draco noted _most part_, wondering what the other part was. "Anyway, Harry'll have my head on a plate for this." It didn't seem like Edwin cared, however.

"He'll probably have mine just for now," Draco predicted gloomily, not really believing it. "Will you tell?"

"About our little chat?"

"No, about the cigarettes I took. Of course, about our chat."

Edwin mimed zipping his mouth like a schoolgirl taking an oath. "I like talking, even if you can't afford it. It's been a slow month, everyone is too worried about their brains blown up like porridge to worry about unfaithful lovers. I'm still scraping up the rent for this month."

_Can't be too much,_ he thought. "Does Harry ever lend you any money?"

"He's not one to be cheap. He can afford it. We've grown distant lately, as you might have guessed."

"Any reason why?" Draco searched for anything in Edwin's face that would give a clue to its inner workings but he was the master of deadpan. He showed exactly what he wanted to tell and nothing more, it seemed. Had he wanted Harry to see how much he cared?

"Time. Life," he replied vaguely. He had an answer for everything; Draco stubbed out his cigarette in a dolphin shaped ashtray. The room had a hopeless feel to it, empty Styrofoam takeaway containers littered about, fading pinups of yesteryear, half eaten packs of biscuits.

Tightening his coat around him, he stood up, the blood rushing back into his limbs. "Good luck with the rent," he said as he turned to leave. Edwin gave him a smile. "Oh, one more thing."

"Yes?"

"I had a run-in with Finnigan's men."

"I'm surprised you're still here." A placid tone.

"A lot of luck." _Luck was all it was._

"I suspected as much."

"You know what Finnigan's up to these days? Been a while since I was in his part of town."

"Haven't the foggiest. Not my area - I occasionally wander into the gray areas but Finnigan's out of my league unless I fancy coming home in a body bag." He sighed. "I can help you if you want to find out what your ex is up to."

"I already know."

"All the same. Want to go for lunch? I know a nice little café, only about fifteen minutes away, that makes great biscotti."

"Already had lunch," Draco lied.

"You're lying."

"I know." Edwin smiled again, and somehow it made Draco feel even worse than his poker face. He lit another cigarette - if he was alive, he mightas well enjoy it. He sucked in too deeply and started coughing, feeling a rush of nausea. "How do you tell?"

"Would I tell you that? It'd ruin all the fun." A sudden draft drying his eyes, he backed out the doorway and the leak from the ceiling made a maddening _plink, plink_ in the bucket.

There was a draining effect about Edwin, always watching like the bloody Mona Lisa. Draco shut the door as quickly as he could.

* * *

Harry hadn't slept for three days.

He kept on talking - about anything, everything, politics, the Dursleys, world peace, his Christmas presents for the first eleven years of his life. It was like watching a video set on fast-forward, a life playing out in comical warp speed. While Harry consistently drove above the speed limit, Draco tagged along as a faithful shadow, nodding and making approving noises when appropriate, waiting in the repaired Mercedes and smoking, waiting for Harry, waiting for his next meal. Waiting for the end of the bloody world.

Sometimes, he would say something about Brian Wright and Draco would listen to that, too, but all he ever got out of it was that it was _unbelievable_ and something about next week, a phone call.

The Merc pulled to a stop in front of an ugly, squat house with purple shutters; Harry stepped out and slammed the car door behind him. Rapping on the glass, he mouthed something; Draco guessed it was, "Get out." Sighing, he opened the door and pressed one foot onto the cold pavement.

A passing car sent a spray of brown water onto Draco's trousers and the back of Harry's coat. Draco gestured a _fuck you_ at the back of the Mini; Harry didn't seem to notice.

They were standing in front of a flaking green door, the number 666 unevenly aligned beneath the peephole at eye height. Draco hovered to the side, wondering what brick would taste like, not sure what to expect. Huddling deeper into his jacket, he found it didn't help in keeping him warm. Whether Harry was cold, he couldn't tell. Harry knocked twice, then once, and twice again in rapid succession.

There were a few moments of silence, then, "Whosit?"

"Harry. Open up."

"Coming... coming..." Harry's eyes swept the empty street behind him and he knocked again. The door hinges made a shrill creak as they bent and Draco saw a pale, thin face. Two bloodshot eyes loomed out from the skin like a whitewashed Halloween mask. "You woke me up."

"It's four in the afternoon, Rossini."

"Yeah, well." Rossini coughed, then blinked rapidly at the light outside. "Shit. Is it always this bright? Sure it's already four?"

"You've been living in your rat hole too long." Draco stamped his feet on the pavement, feeling the concrete chill creeping into his shoes.

Rossini drew himself up, wavering slightly. "It's not a rat hole." Glancing at Draco, he turned back to Harry with a suspicious look. "Who's your friend, 'ey? Care to share?"

"Draco Malfoy, Timothy Rossini. Timothy Rossini, Draco Malfoy. Now that we're all properly introduced, can I come in?"

Tightening the sash around his plaid dressing gown, Rossini drew the door open all the way. "Sure, Harry, of course. Tea? Coffee? Heroin?"

"Tea would be fine, thanks." The flat suffered from a misguided decorating attempt by someone who had gave up halfway through and left it in disrepair. Cheaply framed prints of impressionist paintings and brawny action movie posters hung side by side on the walls and waist high piles of magazines crowded the floor space. Draco picked one up; the cover had a smiling brunette modeling a flesh colored dress with the date 1991 printed beneath the title.

"I collect magazines. Got that whole stack there cheap," Timothy said. "I've got every issue of Maxim from 2000 to 2007," he added proudly.

"Is there a point?"

Blinking, he turned to face him and Draco saw the blood vessels painting his eyes pink; Timothy looked at the small fortress of magazines and shrugged. "Dunno. I like collecting things."

"You had that collection of women's underwear," Harry added, pulling his coat sleeve down to glance at his watch. He squashed a fruit fly by the lamp base and flicked the body from his finger. "How did you pay that woman for the orange pair?"

"I didn't. I sent her pictures of my cock," he said. "Look, Harry, I'd like to take a nap soon. If you could just get on with it-"

"Fine. Let's just sit down. You look like you're about to pass out."

Timothy plodded into what Draco supposed was the kitchen from the rotting odor and bloodied apron hanging on a wooden peg. A recipe card for veal marsala clipped out of a magazine ad was weighted down beneath a brown mug; an inch of sodden tea leaves caked at the bottom. He stared at the ingredients, wondering what Harry could possibly be doing with a person who lived in a flat like this.

"How's Lucy?" Harry tapped his ring and middle finger on his thigh.

"She left me."

He said, "About time." Draco wondered who in their right mind would have gone out with Timothy. "How'd she manage to stay so long?"

Not sounding offended, only resigned, "She called me last week from a pay phone and said I never wanted to do anything and that she'd rather be a lesbian." Timothy laughed nervously.

Draco glanced at Harry, who was sitting on the very edge of the chair and calmly folding his hands in his lap as if he was trying to avoid contact with anything more than necessary. "Boss called."

Who the fuck was boss?

Timothy's back immediately straightened and a lock of hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away impatiently and leaned in over the table. "Really? What's he got this time?"

"More money."

"Doesn't he always," Timothy breathed. He sucked in air through his clenched teeth, his thin chest rising, then slumping again. "Let me make a wild guess what he wanted you to do."

"You, too," Harry lied.

"What're you kissing my arse for, Potter? Don't start on me now. You know well enough I'm perfectly replaceable." He didn't sound bitter about it, almost cheery, matter of fact. "How much?"

"Twice as much as before."

"How much's that?"

"How much did you take last night?"

"No more than usual. How much, Potter?"

Harry said a number, Draco wasn't sure if he heard correctly; it had more zeroes tacked on at the end than he was used to. "What does all of that have to do with you?" he asked.

"Draco Malfoy, right?" Timothy said, as if he was just noticing Draco's presence. Taking the recipe clipping from beneath the mug, he recited the ingredients under his breath. _Two tablespoons olive oil, one tablespoon butter, one cup chicken stock, eight veal cutlets, scalloped._ "I could almost swear I've heard your name before. Can't quite remember when."

"It's just one of those names."

A mobile rang and Harry sighed, taking an impossibly thin phone from his belt. "Yes... yes... fuck that then... fine." Snapping it shut, he turned back to Timothy. "I can't go for him this time."

"What? Harry, you get paid more for one trip than I've got my entire bloody life!"

Harry twisted his mouth into something like a smile. "I haven't finished yet. I want you to go for me."

At something of a loss for words, Timothy spluttered, "You're kidding."

"It won't be hard, the casino will fly you over there, free. I know the owner, he's a decent guy, just show him the letter I'll write for you. First class. Hotel room. Meals, everything. It's amazing what they'll do to hold onto the people who'll blow more than ten grand."

Timothy was almost salivating at the prospect. "He won't let me lose more than five, ten percent, right?"

"And you come back with a nice cheque to hand over. Money's clean."

"Do I get anything?"

"How does fifty percent of what I get sound to you?"

Timothy's voice took on a surly note. "Fifty?"

"Fifty. Final offer."

"Fifty-five."

"You can't afford to lose this opportunity, Rossini." Harry smiled and Draco saw the calculated look in his eyes again, the carefully greased mechanisms turning. "Fifty."

"Fine." Timothy's fingers were shredding the recipe to confetti; he brushed it off the table and onto the linoleum floor.

"Don't screw up this time or we'll be looking for a new pair of legs. He's not known for forgiveness, you know."

"I should. Want to see something?" He pointed at Draco. Not waiting, he opened his dressing gown to expose a brown scar that ran from his right side to the middle of his stomach and lightly touched the skin as if it were a blue ribbon. He could count the individual ribs that pressed against his chest as he breathed. "My fault, mostly. Though that was a bloody sharp blade he had."

Harry stood up; next to the low table, he looked unnaturally tall; Draco wondered if he was leaving. Picking up his bag, he said, "The thing you wanted to show me that you were raving about, Rossini, now might be a good time."

"Ah. That." Timothy rubbed his hands together, standing up and placing one hand on the refrigerator. It made a loud, humming sound, the business cards and fliers tacked up shuddering.

He stepped back out into the living room; Draco felt it would have been more aptly named a dying room. As Timothy lifted the seat cushion of an orange and green floral print sofa, he smelled the odor of cigarettes and smoked sausage.

"Original," Harry commented. "Do you put your valuables in your mattress?"

"If I had valuables, I wouldn't be living here." Timothy swept his hand deeper into the couch, hearing the rustling of paper and the muffled clink of lost change. The floorboards creaked beneath his bent knees. "Found it." Pulling out a crumpled photograph, he stuck his arm out, offering it to Harry.

"Who's the dyke?" Draco leaned in to see the picture; a grainy shot of a woman and the blurred profile of a man sitting inside a café.

"Some reporter. I think the name's Rachel or Rochelle Lake. Know who the bloke is?" He jabbed at the photo in Harry's hand, his foot tapping an impatient beat. For the first time since Draco had seen him, he looked half alive. "Take a guess, Potter. Take a guess."

"Hugh Grant."

"Guess again." Not waiting for an answer, he said, "Finnigan."

Something cold punched Draco in the gut. "Him?" He squinted at the picture again but it could have been anybody.

"What's he doing with a reporter?" Harry said, handing it back to Timothy who folded it twice into a square and shoved it into his trouser pocket.

"Haven't the foggiest. Mickey's the one who took it. You'd have to ask him."

"He been trailing people again?" Harry ground a stray cornflake under his heel, crunching it into orange dust.

Timothy shrugged. "Why would he follow Finnigan? He's in a different league."

"All us lowlifes, Rossini, we're all in the same league."

"Whatever you say. When am I going-" he hesitated for a moment, as if when he said it, it would all disappear, "-you know, taking your place?"

"Soon." Harry adjusted his sunglasses, raising his chin slightly. "By the end of the month, I think. He likes to have all his cash in one place before he lets us touch it."

"Aren't we dedicated minions," Timothy said.

"There's a difference. We get paid."

* * *

"Wands ready," Cho whispered to her. "Just in case he tries anything."

Ginny nodded, very aware of her own wand strapped to her side. She placed her fingers above it and followed him down the stairs. They reached the bottom, Lambert's soles making a tap, tap on the Italian marble. Giant murals covered the walls, shifting masses of green and blue paint that rearranged itself into equally abstract objects. A few house elves walked by, dragging mops and buckets of soapy water.

"This," Lambert said, "is the _Chambre du Soleil._" He did not pause, but walked on into the next room, an indoor garden of citrus trees.

"How do you keep the weather like this?" Ginny asked, curious. She felt too warm, something she had thought she'd never feel again after spending a few days in Paris.

Lambert shrugged. "Money. You can get anything if you have enough money."

Cho said, "The Ministry pays you well?"

He smiled. "Very well."

Walking through a set of glass double doors, he made a flourish towards the pool, wet and blue, a diving board perched on the concrete set around it. One of the girls lounging in a long, white chair turned over, the other rubbing tanning oil on her back that glistened under the seemingly impossible sun. She looked up and smiled at Lambert, leaning over slightly.

"Who are they?" Ginny asked, not sure if she wanted to know.

"Models? Friends? Girlfriends?" Cho pressed.

Shrugging again, "Does it matter?"

"Your English is very good," Ginny said.

"I practice."

Cho was growing edgy; she glanced at her watch again, tapping one boot on the warmed concrete. The oily scent of coconuts drifted over; one of the girls was painting her toenails a slick crimson. She admired them for a second before lying back with one tanned arm thrown over the edge of the seat.

"You can ask questions here," Lambert suggested, sitting on a pool chair.

They didn't like it. Feeling as if he had the upper hand, Ginny sat down awkwardly as they started the planned questioning.

_Get them comfortable talking._ "What do you do at the Ministry?"

"Lots of things. I advise, attend meetings, prepare reports..." His eyes drifted across the pool. "Dupont likes to ask me about America, Britain, Germany. Should we? Shouldn't we? He already knows the answer. I'm just there to assure him it's the right one."

"Any family?"

Lambert laughed for a second. "A father. My mother died when I was five."

Cho said, "I'm sorry." Ginny didn't say anything.

"Don't be."

"Did you know any of the victims?"

"Of course. Jean-Paul Rousseau, especially. We worked together on the Treaty of Moscow in 2007." Ginny watched his face carefully for any sign but his features were still, motionless.

"Any disagreements?"

One of the girls pressed a drink in his hand and whispered something in his ear. He replied, maybe in Spanish, and she laughed. "Who doesn't? It was never anything more serious than the occasional minor quibble and it never prevented any of us from working together," sounding eager to prove himself innocent. "Margaux and I, we had our differences. Just petty things. Petty things."

"Were any of them involved in anything that might have been dangerous?" Cho asked. She loosened her collar.

Lambert stared at the water of the pool, his eyes closing for a moment. "Perhaps. Jean-Paul did foolish things. We all did foolish things."

"What sort of things?"

"Would you like a drink?" he offered.

Glancing over at Ginny, Cho answered, "Thank you but no."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Ginny said firmly. Determined to keep on topic, "What sort of things?"

"Oh, it wasn't important. Working too much, working too little. Sometimes forming the wrong alliances or getting involved in a bad business deal." Ginny didn't press any further but it nagged at the back of her mind.

The sun reflected off the water, making the surface seem glassy; Ginny wondered vaguely what it would feel like if she could go swimming in there, she hadn't gone swimming in _forever_, not for two years , at least... Did her black swimsuit still fit? It was probably too small, she decided, and reminded herself to ask Melissa about the health club she was always raving about.

"Do you know how they were murdered?" It sounded so crude, blunt. Ginny bit her tongue, reminding herself it was her job.

Cho was looking at the watch again, but not for the time. This invention was one of the few she and Smithson saw eye to eye on, a sort of Sneakoscope, except far more reliable and best of all, silent. The seven on the clock face turned red when anybody in the immediate vicinity was lying. At the moment, it was black.

"Only what Dupont and everybody else told us. The Ministry has been doing its best to keep the story from being overblown in the press. Not doing a very good job of it, though," he added, the corner of his mouth curving, "not a very good job at all. I know next to nothing. It's tragic," he said, in an almost breezy tone, but Ginny detected something beaten down behind his voice, "but if we are to survive this, we cannot let them win by letting the terror keep us from working."

It sounded optimistic, rehearsed, repeated in front of bathroom mirrors and press conferences, until it almost became true. The seven was still black.

"Did you suspect anyone?" Ginny continued, idly watching the flat, turquoise surface and the reflected sky.

Lambert shrugged. "The Ministry has its enemies. France has been in a state of peace for the last decade, we don't move, nobody else attacks us. Peace is a strange thing..." he trailed off for a moment, studying the sky. "It costs more than war, sometimes. Maybe somebody wanted to stir things up. As for an actual person, I don't know."

"Brian Wright?" The name felt odd in Ginny's mouth.

"This Wright... I'm not sure what to think about him. It's possible, of course, but anything is possible at this point. With all the evidence we have, for all we know, Dupont himself could been this silent, traceless killer." He laughed at his own joke, taking another drink. Still black. "There are hundreds of Brian Wrights, all equally capable. I am every bit as clueless as you. The idea that a Muggle could wreak such havoc on the magical world, however, is still a new one..."

Starting the tedious part of the questioning, Ginny began at the most promising name: "Margaux Dubois?" Lambert's eyes were unfocused, drawing inward. His fingers loosened around the base of his glass, his other hand by his temple.

"She was domineering. I will not lie about it, as I know about that device your friend is wearing." Ginny kept her surprise off her face, "Brilliant, though, in a forceful way. Always the top of her class at Beauxbatons, she told everyone, but I heard she wasn't a favorite among teachers. She was hell to work with, we couldn't agree on anything except that we couldn't agree. She favored a more radical stance than I and she was very determined. When they would not execute a pair of men suspected of a shootout for fear it would damage relations, she almost quit." He was quiet for a while, then took another drink, crossing his feet. "Got quite a raise when she was persuaded to stay. Everyone resented her at one time or another. You will not find leads on that point." He was being honest, truly honest, Ginny realized with a start.

Scanning her notes that listed the victim names, their professions, time and place they were found dead, she decided she might as well continue with a person he could provide information about. "Your friend, Jean-Paul Rousseau. Do you know any reason he might have been targeted?"

Lambert, for once, lost his affected cool. Quieting for a few seconds, Ginny saw the vein in his left temple rising, his spine stiffening, his chest constricting. And as soon as it had come, he was relaxed again. "Do you?" he asked almost sarcastically, and he shifted positions. The girl walked over to him, pressing another drink in his hand, identical to the last. But this time, he didn't seem as happy with her.

"Perhaps you could just tell us something about him, your relationship, his personality, anything would help." Cho laced her fingers together. The sun beat down with a ferocious intensity, just beyond the edge of the trees that surrounded Lambert's estate, Ginny could distinguish the thick mass of clouds that marked where the heat ended and the rest of the world began.

As he started off, his voice was hesitant and clipped. "Jean-Paul - we had known each other for many years, before we worked in the Ministry..." he glared at his drink with a furious concentration, like he was trying to mentally shatter it. "He- he- became an intern at the Ministry at eighteen, as well as I... we were both excited. He didn't fare so well... he was always full of ideas, so impatient..." As he fell silent again, a bird wheeled in the air, shrieking. The sun weighed down on Ginny's shoulders, a yellow hand of heat. Cho had stopped looking at the watch altogether, watching Lambert's face for any sign.

"I shouldn't be boring you with my sentimental stories," he said briskly, the softness disappearing, and he knocked back his drink like a handful of pills.

"No, no, continue," Ginny felt obligated to say.

"You are just humoring me, _n'est-ce pas_?"

Ginny wasn't sure how to answer. "You can help us," she tried. "Help us solve it-"

"Ah, but you won't solve it. There is nothing to solve. It is just a game, nothing more. You are not looking for _who_ did this, but rather _why_. You are assuming you know who while you are already likely to be correct, what is important is the _where_."

"To find Wright, you are saying?"

Lambert shrugged, his favorite evasive gesture, keeping his meaning indefinite. "Perhaps. Perhaps."

Read? Review!

* * *

**Author's Note: **Another chapter under the belt. Finally. I found myself rewriting scenes to make them seedier and more depressing, but then got too lazy to type them. For example, I rewrote part of the interview in front of a dirty, drained pool. You reviewers are getting to me. : )

The opening scene inspired from _Glitz_, what with the murder of the driver and all. The driver is left anonymous on purpose. If you can figure out from the conversation between Harry and Timothy what practice they're referring to, you get a cookie. There's not much to credit in this chapter except my beta Kate, who had her prod at the ready, and everybody who put up with me. Ursula, Lulinda, all my lj friends... *sighs*

If you're interested in receiving updates, discussing, or anything else, there's the shiny new **yahoo group** here. I highly suggest you join to go humor me. And of course, I reply to all reviews, so check back for my commentary. On a somewhat related note, there's also Speedball which is a sort of spinoff in an AU Spain with more... crime.

I refuse to apologize for this chapter. Agh, fighting. Must. Not. Damn my insecurity.


	5. Two Fingered Salute

**Title:** Bad Faith (05)  
**Author name:** Ace  
**Author email:** elel88_2000@hotmail.com  
**Category:** Action/Adventure  
**Sub Category:** Drama  
**Keywords:** paris london cars guns crime  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** Set around 2010 in Muggle London, a chance encounter between Draco Malfoy and the infamous Harry Potter is on a collision course to disaster. Drugs, murder, crime, and every sin in excess. In this chapter, Draco holds Harry's gun in his trembling hand, Ginny takes a trip to the library, California falls off into the ocean, and Sirius sends a postcard.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** Proper author's notes at the end.  
  
All reviews are replied to on the message boards.  
  
And as always, a big schnoogle to my official beta Kate, as well as Siria for the guest beta. "French broad" is know "French tart". ;)  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  


**BAD FAITH**

**Chapter Five**

**TWO FINGERED SALUTE**

_so i work for this brian wright .at least i'm supposed to. they dont tell me much, you know? they tell me, shut up, do you your job. once i almost got beat up ,man , i nearly pissed my pants i learned my lesson then .keep my sorry arse out of their business and do mine. _

_for my job , i went to paris like, two three days, i thought it might be some fun. along with some other guy, he wasn't too bad for a blond. i hate blonds, you know, they just don't rub me the right way.anyway, we were there what, three days? paris .i want to pick up some french tart. the blond's all okay ,okay, we just gotta have our job done and by that time, i'm what job? you crazy?_

_so heres the funny part. im not a real bad guy ,honest. i fuck up alot, maybe i got a screw loose somewhere but im not a murderer or anything , you know?_ _i'm just not into deep shit like that . i rather feel sorry for myself and fuck up my own life ,thank you very much.so meand the blond are out in some big park and theres some person there , jogging, real upstanding looking fellow,got a rolex on his wrist and his sweats probably cost more than my junk car .and the blond looks around, i ask him what the fuck we're doing here. i thought we're her maybe to rough somebody up, get some information ,man . and the blond hands me some stick . a fucking stick. he tells me ,point it at that gu yand i don't argue and he hold my arms and says something , and the jogger looks up and i feel like a bloody fool. something really wild happens .this green light shoots out and the jogger fall over and i pass out. dont remember a fucking thing ,you know?_

_laugh at me all you want . iknow it sounds crazy but its true. _

* * *

Timothy woke up early that morning, ran a comb through his hair, and decided not to smile that day as he examined his teeth in the mirror. Hailing a black cab, he counted out small change when he reached Harry's flat until the driver looked like he'd rather throw it at him. He tried to smooth out the wrinkles in his jacket as he knocked on the door.

Jackal opened it.

"Rossini, great to see you!"

"Great to see you, too," Timothy said, lying. Lying always came so easily.

"Fallen on hard times?"

"No, just fine, thanks."

Jackal laughed and slapped him on the back with the hand that wasn't holding a drink. Sure, sure. Timothy gritted his teeth and forgot his decision not to smile; it wasn't a smile, more a snarl, really. Always good for a laugh, Jackal.

He didn't know anything - that was what he kept on telling himself these days. Harry was always having to yank Jackal out of some new problem that had cropped up and help him with the dirty work that he was too cowardly to do: collecting payments, dealing with disgruntled losers; Jackal didn't have any people skills. Never had.

A few sharp suited men reclined on the overstuffed leather sofas, talking quietly while one of them shuffled a deck of cards, expertly bridging them between his hands. Timothy tried to keep his gaze somewhere between the ground and his knees and twisted his hands behind his back, trying to look like he was doing something. He found that if he had a drink in one hand, he could look occupied.

The first thing he asked was, "Where's Harry?" It was more of an automatic reaction.

"He said he'd be back, said he forgot something..."

Timothy was thinking about the plane ride, the hotel room, how many telephones it would have, what kind of view from the window, what it would feel like to sit in a Jacuzzi. Fifty percent. Harry was good, very good, he had to admit that. The bloke he'd brought with him yesterday was sitting off in a corner, a blank expression on his face. There was a tired look in his eyes and his mouth was a thin line that managed to seem angry even when it wasn't moving. Draco, he remembered, yeah, that was it - Draco.

The men there shot him funny looks sometimes, like they knew something that Timothy had done or said wrong. Those were the worst; they made him break out in a sweat and blink rapidly, trying to look away but never quite losing that _feeling_ that they could see something he couldn't. Billy, he was looking his way now. Sneaky git, never had liked him. He was a rat, that one. Told Harry that all the time. Timothy examined his hands, positive Billy still had his eye on him. For what? Had he done something? More sweat prickled on the back of his neck.

He lacked the capital or the connections that would have made him a personal interest to them; Harry provided that, anyway. Sometimes Timothy liked it that way, letting himself sit back loose limbed and watching them squabble, their controlled greed, and he wondered whether if he could participate, he would be like that, too.

In a cuffed dress shirt with the sleeves shoved up past his elbows, Billy shuffled and bridged the deck again, the cards making a pleasant whirring sound.

"Want to play?" he asked. The design on the back was of a large, green Celtic knot. Billy picked up an ace of spades between two fingers. Bam. Like that. "Harry's still not back. Know what's keeping him?"

Draco had taken up a new position, measuring vodka into a shot glass; he looked as if he was staring at the painting of a nude on the wall above the fireplace, but Timothy noticed his eyes were flicking downwards to the poker game that had started. For a second, he looked utterly confused. Wondering exactly who he was, why he was there, Timothy found himself walking towards Draco, running his knuckles along the wall.

"Hey," he started. "You were there yesterday at my place?"

Draco nodded, still watching the card game.

"You're Draco Malfoy?" He didn't like being ignored when he was making an effort; it only made him more nervous. He ran his tongue over the back of his lower lip and put a hand on the counter to prop himself up. "Didn't get to talk to you much. How d'you know Harry?"

No answer for a moment. Then, "I don't know." Harry had a talent for picking up dispirited fucks, Timothy decided. This one had been beaten far too often as a child. Draco's shoulders slumped inward and a shock of almost unnaturally blond hair had fallen into his eyes. He sat with his knees open, hunched in over himself, observing the hand a man was holding close with one hand, a cigarette pressed between Billy's lips.

"Not much for talking, 'ey?"

Draco finally glanced over at him and for a moment, Timothy felt something like relief. Hey, lookie here, the bloke's got some life in him. As he tried to remember something about Draco from yesterday, only recalling that he'd shown him the scar on his stomach, it hurt again - the mental twinge that accompanied the recollection. That knife had hurt like a bitch; the man had been into knives; Timothy didn't know why; other kinds of metal were far more effective these days. His luck, he supposed. A point-blank shot would have left more than just a mark.

"No."

Harry had walked back in quietly, taking a position behind the sofa. Billy's head snapped around. "Back?" he said, resting his fingertips on the glass table, pushing a few crisp notes around. "What did you go out for?"

"Nothing. Everyone's here?" He took stock of the room and Timothy marveled again at how easily he processed his surroundings; a glance here, there, and he knew exactly what was going on, what was missing. Couldn't put anything past him. There was a sort of admiration and fear in that thought. Not a sodding thing.

Billy said, "Yeah," and pushed his sleeves up further, exposing the beginning of a tattoo around his upper arm; a design he had never bothered to explain to them. Mickey sat to his left with an elbow propped up on his knee, keeping an eye on his cards, his face expressionless. "Anything planned this time?"

"Not really. Just a few things I wanted to mention but it can wait until later."

Timothy noticed Mickey had taken advantage of Billy's temporary loss of focus and was sneaking a look at his hand, tilted slightly forward. Noticing this as well, Draco smiled. "Who's he?" he said, turning his head.

"Mickey." Every time Timothy saw him, he was struck by his resemblance to an actor on TV, the one Lucy had been drooling over a few weeks ago until he'd thrown the remote against the wall. It had felt good screaming at her. Got some of the stress off his mind.

"The one who took the photograph?"

He hesitated for a second, surprised Draco had remembered. The square picture was still in his trouser pocket and he felt it again as he bent his knees slightly to examine the unopened packages of cigarettes on the countertop. Somebody turned on some music, unobtrusive stuff he would've been able to identify if he was given a few minutes. "Yeah, that's the one."

Finnigan, Draco said, all of a sudden, as if he'd just remembered he was male. That was him in the picture. And Timothy said, yeah, that was him, alright. He took a pull of his Heineken and watched the resumed poker game, only thinking _later this month_ and _when the cash is all together_ and _fifty percent_, wondering how much fifty percent was, wondering how drunk he could get on fifty percent, fifty-five percent, wondering if he could afford to get a nicer flat, maybe fix up the place a little. What was he doing? And Timothy replied right away, not a fucking clue. You should ask Mickey, Mickey's the one who took it. Mickey would know. Him and his camera, like a paparazzo on acid. Draco said, Mickey would know, 'ey? He imitated his "'ey", doing it better than Timothy himself. Timothy nodded. Ask him. I don't know a bloody thing, he lied.

"Why're you so interested in Finnigan?"

"You haven't heard?"

"What did I miss? Did the queen give a two-fingered salute on the BBC? Did California fall into the ocean? ­­­Do grown men have sex with each other?"

Draco didn't laugh. "I know him." When Timothy waited for him to elaborate, he said, "He's got a personal interest in me."

"Why? You don't strike me as the type he'd send his goons after." Actually, Timothy had no idea what type Finnigan would go after. With his luck, it'd be him.

"It's a long story." Draco wanted to tell it; Timothy could tell from the way his mouth was working at keeping itself from spilling the words out in a harried rush of narrative, the eyes focused on trying not to. The sulky ones were usually amazingly willing to share every last detail of their life with you, providing you got them in the right spot. Timothy tapped his foot again. _Now. Soon. Ask Harry._

He shrugged, "Aren't they always?", only mildly interested, hoping Draco wouldn't launch into maudlin whinging. Harry saved him.

"Rossini, about yesterday -"

Timothy's head snapped up and his pulse quickened. "Want to talk about it?"

"I just met with him again. We're on an equal footing for the most part but you know how he likes his control. Said he didn't know about it, maybe yes, maybe no."

"You mean on letting me go for you?" He wouldn't ask why Harry couldn't do it himself, he willed. Losing interest in the conversation, Draco dropped a few ice cubes into his glass and poured another scotch, examining the bottom like he was analyzing a painting.

"What else would it be about?" Harry sighed and Timothy felt more stupid than usual.

"Maybe means yes."

Still a little dubious, "When? When do I go? Where?"

"He said about two weeks. Thede owns the casino. You'll just have to run my name by the secretary and she'll take you to him immediately. Just explain you're taking my place and make sure you mention the amount you're depositing."

Timothy said, "Two weeks."

"You ever been on a plane?"

A few times, Timothy answered. Will I fly first class? Harry said yes. Thede would pay for his ticket. And for the first time, he was nervous as hell; his skin itched and crawled. Thede'll comp you with the kind of money you'll be playing with, Harry said. What should I bring? Some clothes, things like that. It just made Timothy more nervous. What things? What if he forgot something? What if he fucked up so badly they'd need his dental records to identify his remains?

Somebody hit the table, saying something Timothy committed to memory for future use, wondering if it was physically possible. "It's easy," Harry told him. Sure it was. Of course it was.

"And if I get caught? If something happens?"

Raising an eyebrow from behind his sunglasses, "Optimistic today, aren't we?"

"I can't help it-" he shut up. "Mind if I take one?" Timothy asked, picking up a white carton.

"Not at all."

He scooted closer to the poker game that was in high gear. Billy was losing impressively, not seeming to care.

Timothy glanced to where Draco had been before; seeing that he'd gone somewhere else, he said, "Who's that Draco fellow, 'ey? Moody little number." The smoke felt good. He closed his eyes, feeling calm for a split second. Then it was back again, he had to keep moving, something that kept on pushing him. _Look around. Anyone watching? Listening? Relax._ Keep your eyes there - no, over there. Look at Harry. See if he's lying. Look at his eyes. _But I can't see his eyes._ Timothy wanted to grab the glasses off his face and break them beneath his heel. He changed the subject. "Who's Thede? You've dealt with him before?"

"Plenty. He sees me every year."

"He'll be cool with it?"

"Why not." Harry ran his fingers through his hair, his attention moving elsewhere. "Why not."

* * *

Since the Daily Prophet article had been published, owls had been arriving daily, some of them consoling letters from Hermione's oldest friends, but most of them she crumpled after a glance and tossed into the growing pile of hate mail. A few were Howlers and spat the angry accusations of strangers; she listened to them unflinching, although she occasionally turned white.

"Well, that's a new one," she said after glancing at a piece of parchment brought in by a giant, reddish-brown owl that had barely been able to fit through the window. "According to them, I should stew in a cauldron of my own waste."

Niall tried at humor. "That's not new. That was in yesterday's letter, the one from Bella Ludgoose."

"And the two owls on Monday..."

"Are you okay? Anything I can do, anything-"

"The first sixty eight times you asked, it was sweet, Niall. Now it's just annoying."

"Still." He looked at her, his gaze falling on the shadowed hollows under her eyes and the set of her mouth he knew only too well. It was there when she insisted on working late to finish a last-minute project and when she maintained that she wasn't sick and he had to force her to stay at home, complaining even when she couldn't stand up straight that _she was fine_.

"You didn't have to take the day off work. I'm fine, how many times do I have to tell you that?" Hermione slid her hair tie up to her wrist and hastily pulled her hair away from her face. She bit the insides of her cheeks, and pursed her lips, looking into the wall mirror.

"Honey, you should get some sleep," it advised her in a badly faked Texan drawl.

"No chance of that happening," Niall remarked, putting his hand in the fridge and grabbing a few eggs and a half-empty carton of milk. "You haven't slept properly since you were twenty-two."

"I'd need to go through detox to get the caffeine out of my system. I should, really, since I'm not working."

"You'll get another job," Niall said firmly, breaking an egg one-handed against the edge of the bowl, staring at the yolk for a moment, forgetting a lot of things. "I'll pick up the Daily Prophet when I run to the store for some more eggs. These are the last two. Anything you want?"

"Some chocolate would be nice. Junk. Crisps and prepackaged food to clog up my arteries..."

"What happened to the detox plan?"

"Screw that." Grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl, she examined it for brown spots and bit into it. "Buy the largest bar of Cadbury's there is."

Niall continued staring at the egg yolk, not moving. "You're sure?"

Another bite. "Yes."

"Susan sent an owl this morning - he says he's coming over whether we like it or not."

"Susan Jones?" She sounded surprised. Niall looked up at the kitchen clock shaped like a cow, only to see that the hands had frozen; warm air escaped from between his teeth. When Hermione switched on the radio, the carefully pronounced syllables of a news report informed of them of things Niall had heard her discussing - placement of Hit Wizards in wizarding Britain, the extinction of Ramoras.

"That's the one. And Molly did, too, with more food than we'll ever need if the world decides to end."

It was Hermione's turn to sigh. "It's too hot in here," she said abruptly, pushing up the window over the kitchen sink. Her toes curled up on the white tiles of the floor, the dim light of morning illuminating one side of her body. "Now it's too cold," and she shut it. As she turned around, it seemed like her cardigan had more color than her face. He laid a hand on her cheek, feeling as helpless as ever, wondering if he could rub off the circles underneath her eyes like smudging watercolor off her skin.

"I'm _fine_," she snapped, pulling away. "I've never been better. I don't need to be coddled like a two year old, Niall."

He didn't say anything. Her mouth tightened, then relaxed. "Look, I'm being a pillock here, aren't I?" One hand pulled out the tie and her hair spread into a brown cloud. He wanted to say _not at all_, or _it's all right_, hug her, _anything you want at all... _

What he said was, "About last Saturday."

She brushed it off impatiently. "The important thing is no one was hurt. Honestly, moping around about _that_ isn't going to help matters."

"I was just worrying-"

"Stop bloody worrying!" Her lips clamped together with exasperated force. "I'm fine!"

"Aren't you always." He hadn't meant it to come out that way.

"What is it with you? I tell you I'm fine, I'm fine. Can't you just bloody accept that? I'm not made of glass, you know."

"I know you're not, darling, it's just that..."

"It's just that what?"

He wasn't sure himself, just the old feeling trying to tell him something, constantly shadowing him about it. She _was_ fine, or so he wanted to believe; he wanted to believe that more than a lot of the things he'd been told, but the words from her mouth seemed more of an empty statement and he _didn't_ want to believe them - she couldn't be fine. She needed him. _She needs you_. He could believe that.

"Niall?" Hermione had the beginnings of worry on her face. "You okay there?"

"I'm fine," he said, smiling as he beat the eggs, watching the broken yolk fall over the fork. "Never been better."

* * *

"The Quick Quotes Quill worked, right?" Ginny flipped through a heavy sheaf of paper, all covered with notes in impossibly neat writing on the interviews ; the quill had recorded transcripts and a blow by blow commentary while hidden in her bag. Just looking at it gave her a headache.

Her mind was still trying to process all the information, fit the pieces together. "A visual learner," her tutors had always told Molly, and for a while, Ginny had hated labels and had been determined to learn in other ways before accepting it. She lined the notes up on the hotel room floor, pushing a pile of wrinkled clothing and equipment out of the way.

"You could say that. I think it recorded the percentage of cotton and elastic in their socks." Cho stepped around her and took the comb from the nightstand, dragging it through her hair; she winced as the comb tugged through a particularly stubborn knot. Sitting down on the bed, she crossed her legs into a sloppy lotus position and pretended to meditate.

"What now?"

Ginny scanned the sheets of unrolled parchment and tapped each with her wand as she passed over them. "Lambert, Marat, Mirabeau."

With Cho watching, Ginny began to feel self-conscious. "Why don't you help?" she said irritably, depressed over the progress or distinct lack thereof that morning.

"You know," Cho said, "Lambert was right."

"About what? The dead thing, or the house thing?"

"No." She uncrossed her legs and spread them out in front of her, sighing. Cho had usually struck Ginny as more prim than this, forever nitpicking, quick to form an opinion. At the moment, she looked far too relaxed to be _Cho_. It made her head hurt.

"Then what, pray tell?" Impatient, the frustration was building up where it always started: beneath her forehead, then prickling on her neck, her arms, threatening to burst out of her.

"About Brian Wright."

"What about him?" All the interviewees had seemed to agree on the personalities and life stories of the victims; a few had shared tidbits of gossip about their personal lives - an affair here, a betrayal there, but all were equally clueless as to _how_ they had died or why they'd been chosen. Some of them were still mulling over the _why_ with a particular ferocity, searching for answers, and Ginny felt a sort of old pain watching them struggle - she knew the _why_ only too well.

"Dupont seemed so sure about it. If we could just get our hands on this Wright, maybe we'd learn something. A little Veritaserum - I could get us cleared for that quickly, ask a few questions..."

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Ginny replied absently.

"It would be very nice," Cho agreed, examined the breakfast that had been wheeled in and speared a peeled grapefruit section, popping it into her mouth.

"Bung me one of those pastries, will you? Maybe a blackberry one." Ginny caught it in midair without turning to look.

"Nice reflexes."

"If they weren't, I'd be dead." As she tugged her backpack into her lap, she rifled through her folders, pulling one out and taking out the stack of photographs . "It's eerie how they don't move."

With a shrug, Cho took another grapefruit section. "Wouldn't expect them to, right? Could I see those again?" Ginny passed them over, feeling hopeless, not liking the thinking parts of her job. Well, that's what Cho was there for, she assured herself. A wrinkle appeared between her partner's eyebrows; she scrutinized each photograph with a dedicated eye.

"What would you say if I told you we were going to the Muggle library?"

"You could just ask," Ginny said pointedly. "Or order me to."

* * *

"Is he still in Cyprus?" Cho shushed her and leaned in closer over the Muggle newspaper. Sighing, she slapped it shut on the table and grabbed another from the pile.

"Can I help?" Cho's black hair was pulled tightly away from her face and her fingers impatiently pushed away a stray lock.

The room had one faulty fluorescent light bulb that dimmed and flickered directly above them. A table was piled high with Muggle newspapers (Cho was wary of the microfilm for some reason) the top paneled with a plastic wood pattern. There was an empty buzz in the air, the noise generated by her ears to fill the emptiness. Even the librarian seemed to have left, probably to a back room. Long lines of bookshelves marched along the walls like a set of wooden dominoes while Cho scanned the next paper with feverish efficiency.

"Do you think there might be a non-Muggle way to go about this?" Ginny asked, looking at the gilt clock that stood oppressively behind them like a painted walnut dictator. The hands pointed to 4:57 and something suspiciously like hunger was starting to appear, not to mention that the boredom that had set in was starting to become overwhelming.

"But he's a _Muggle_ criminal," Cho said logically, in a way only she could do, placing another newspaper on the discarded pile. "What could _La Bibliothèque Nationale de la Magie_ possibly carry? Wait, here's something..." As Cho pointed out a small article written entirely in French, Ginny blinked, wondering who had come up with the bright idea of creating different languages.

"And it would say...?"

Impatiently, "Not much actually. It's from a few months ago. Just says he's probably lying low in Cyprus and the police have a $25,000 reward if anyone finds him, and he's also wanted in France for... wow."

"What?"

"A lot of things." Cho didn't elaborate and Ginny was afraid to ask. "They don't mention the Ministry murders"-she checked the date again "-I think only one or two cases had happened back then and they thought they were isolated, muggings, some disturbed wizards, sort of thing. Do you have the interview notes?"

"Right here, somewhere." Unzipping her backpack, Ginny found the paper between her map and the Smithson's concise guide to the workings of the French Ministry she had yet to crack open. The silence was louder than ever until the kick of a rumbling motorcycle came through the wall, followed by a faint human yell. She already missed the eerie warmth of Lambert's residence and the sun - clearly, Paris had not seen it for a while.

That morning, the air had had the quality of stepping into a walk-in freezer, her breath smoking blue and white in front of her, Cho jamming her fists deeper within her pockets. Paris was cold gray and brick; for a moment, she wondered if home was any better, i Christmas had been any better. She quickly pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

The librarian had reappeared behind her desk and was ignoring them with a fat novel in front of her.

Cho took the notes. It looked as if she was searching for something; Ginny wasn't sure what they could possibly have missed. _Marquise du Châtelet, Rene Daumal, Michel Foucault_ -all passed by, meticulously numbered and highlighted.

"Dubois was a friend of Francois Arouet, they said something about..."   


"About what?"

* * *

Harry snapped the phone shut and put it back in his jacket pocket.

"Who was that?" Draco asked; Harry seemed unusually friendly. Draco had given up trying to get an explanation for his continued meals and board and was holding onto them with a sort of anxious tenacity, the empty acceptance he'd managed to drill into himself without thoughts of why it was. It didn't get him anywhere.

"Boss," he answered shortly.

Draco decided to push his luck. "Who's this boss?" Harry didn't answer, eyes focused on the road, one hand holding a fag that was burning down to an ash stump. He pressed a button to his left, the electric window rolled down and his fingers flicked the cigarette end into the traffic. A blast of cold air flew in, temporarily bringing up goose bumps on Draco's arms. His throat felt dry and he tried to swallow but it got stuck halfway down.

"Boss?" Timothy said from the back seat; he was admiring the leather interior. "Anything about me?" Draco refrained from askng his question again, willing himself to remember the cold, the empty low. He wished he had some tape he could slap over his mouth.

Silence for a moment, then, "Yeah. I suppose so."

"What do you mean, you suppose?" Draco sneaked a look in the rearview mirror - Timothy was leaning forward, his thin face close to Harry's shoulder. "That a yes or no?"

"A yes, Rossini. A yes." The car made a pleasant hum over the damp, cold streets and Harry flipped on the radio. As Draco stared out the window, the faces of passers-by were pink streaks and the bright red and blue neon of an Open sign flicked off, and then back on. The name Finnigan remained at the back of his mind, keeping him uneasy. Timothy was still fidgeting and his fingers drummed out a rhythm on his thigh, his leg jittering. It made Draco nervous just looking at him.

Harry frowned into the rearview mirror and his shoulders tensed up as he leaned in to see something. He made a sudden left onto Kennington Road and then made a sharp right onto Lambeth Street. Suspecting he knew what it was, Draco craned his neck to see behind them, catching the white flash of headlights and the outline of a car that he was almost positive he'd seen before. Not wanting to believe it was happening, he sunk back into the seat.

They kept driving, Harry periodically checking behind them. The thought hung in the air in front of him, almost tangible.

"Somebody's following us," Harry affirmed in a curiously flat tone, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of him. But Draco could see the tension at the corner of his mouth and in the fingers that held the steering wheel. His lips tightened around the cigarette and he glanced back quickly.

"Who's following us?" Timothy turned back in his seat to look behind them. A blast from somebody's horn.

"Get the fuck down!" Another turn. Sweat broke out on Draco's forehead.

"Who is it?" Almost a whisper.

Shortly, "I don't know." Another turn. Draco gripped the seatbelt. The sound of the car was almost sinister now, the sputter of gravel and the surge of other cars passing.

He tried to sink down as far as he could into the seat, willing his body to press into the leather. His chest hurt as if something hot was poking from the inside, his heart beating like a trip-hammer. This wasn't fucking happening.

Harry spun the wheel to the right in another sharp turn and the tires squealed on the damp concrete, mirrored by the following car. His eyes were still fixed on the road and every line of his body was poised, trying to drive the vehicle forward with the force of his own body, transferring his will into the machine.

A long, dark saloon drove by, pausing in front of them, and then zooming off. Draco's mouth went dry and he pressed his knees together, reminded of reality, bent over; this wasn't fucking _happening_. Blood rushed to his face. He gritted his teeth. He tried to break them. Tried to breathe.

"It's Finnigan."

Harry still didn't turn around. "How do you know?"

"I know."

"You sure?" Timothy was trying not to back round; he looked as scared as hell, eyes giant in the darkness. Shit.

"I'm going to try to lose him," Harry said in that same flat voice, lower than ever. "What did you _do_? Rape his mother?" An angry edge had crept into his voice and its volume rose a fraction. Harry tore off his sunglasses all of a sudden and slammed them down on the dashboard. He was nervous, too. It didn't suit him. His thigh was quivering and his movements were brief and jerky like a badly made mechanical doll.

"I didn't do anything. It was all-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Harry had lost all semblance of cool; his voice had a raw edge in it now, ready to snap. "You're nothing but a shitload of trouble, aren't you?"

Draco didn't answer.

Timothy was breathing hard, wheeze in, wheeze out. In. Out. The arrow on the speedometer crept up slowly - 40, 45, 50, 55. It must have been the street lamps, but Draco thought he saw a black figure, a man running after them, the flashing lights of a police car. More fevered imaginings. A siren, the garbled static of a walkie-talkie, the clang of jail bars, over and over again. And then his father standing before him and something like regret and fear. Then his mother. 

Blood pounded in his ears. His heart rate rose with the speedometer, now 60, 65, 70. Another screech as the car maneuvered into a narrow street, narrowly missing another car. The rising roar of the motor, the presence behind them, closer and closer it seemed, some coked up game of tag. In a carefully controlled turn, Harry yanked the Mercedes sharply to the right, with another high whine from the tires.

"_Fuck_," Harry spat with surprising force. "They're gaining."

"Could I have a fag?" Timothy said and Harry just tossed him back the carton without glancing back, not a question. He fumbled for a second and lit it with shaking fingers. "Holy shit, Malfoy." Angry, scared. "He's after you, 'ey? Well do us a bloody favor and jump out."

He coughed, seeming calmer, somewhat. The Mercedes rolled over a pothole and Draco flew up on the seat. Going ever faster, Harry hunched over the wheel, his foot on the accelerator. The car behind them. Closer.

"Grab the gun!" Harry barked.

"What gun?" Desperate.

"The glove compartment." Draco was struck dumb for a moment and Harry leaned over and in an instant, yanked it open. Sifting through the contents, Draco drew out the Glock 17. His fingers shook as he held it and he wanted to shove it back in, snap the compartment shut.

Draco looked behind and suddenly, there was a _bang_ that made his body go hot and cold and he thought he was going to vomit.

"Shoot it!"

"What? But-"

"Just fucking shoot it!" The window rolled down and Draco tried to aim, black spots clouding his vision, the cold gush of wind drying up the dampness on his forehead. He pulled the trigger.

_Bang_. Harry swore again. "Shoot it again!" The Mercedes swung to the left. The car behind them veered off. "The back window!"

Timothy dropped down on the seat. Draco aimed and squeezed his eyes shut. Black. Mouth dry. Pull.

_Bang_. He nearly dropped the gun. Then the sound of wheels swerving wildly on the road, violently changing course. Draco held his hand out in front of him and dropped the Glock into his lap. It fell there. His hands were shaking so hard. He was going to fucking explode.

* * *

"I brought flowers. Hope you don't mind. They're awfully nice, don't you think? He said the pink ones would be better but Hermione doesn't strike me as a pink kind of person, or a red one for that matter. So I told him, I'm going to get the orange lilies and that was the end of it..." Susan spoke rapidly and Niall wondered how he managed to keep his smile on so easily.

"She's just in the next room," Niall told him, taking the flowers and taking the old ones out of the vase in the hallway.

"She OK? You OK? Horrible thing to happen. Don't know what the world's coming to, as my grandmother would say. Scared the hell out of me when I was a kid; she always talked about the world ending. Hasn't though, and it's not bloody likely to," he continued breezily. "Ms. Granger!" She looked up from the book she was reading; one by some author whose name Niall could never pronounce. _Dostoyevsky_, she would repeat exasperatedly. _It's not that hard, honestly._ He had never been any good at languages. "Did you see the flowers? I was just telling Niall about them. Orange lilies, just lovely, really. Your favorite, I think. Are you OK?"

"What should I answer first?" She looked amused and a little grateful; Niall was struck with a pang of jealousy at how effortlessly Susan could put her at ease.

"I'm being such an idiot today, aren't I? Anyway, how's your mother doing?"

"She called me several times last week about her back and how my father isn't doing anything to help her; it's as if she thinks I'm a chiropractor or something. She's getting her doctors mixed up."   


Niall dashed into the kitchen and set up a biscuit tray and drinks, mentally slapping himself for not doing so beforehand. 

"How's work, Havish? Anything new over at the EMD?" Almost forgetting that he'd taken a few days off work, Niall almost missed the routine meltdowns at Experimental Magic.

He took a moment to answer, looking at Susan's blindingly white teeth, and smiled at him, the tension in his chest finally slacking off. "Good, mostly. Last week, the lab only exploded twice and the third degree burns only covered twenty percent of my body. The doctor said I was lucky."

"Job search coming along?" Susan asked, as tactfully as possible.

Hermione didn't seem to mind. "I still have to go through the help wanted in the _Prophet. _ Not sure what job I'd apply for, anyway, unless they had a 'head bitch' position listed..."

Laughing, "Something you're extremely good at."

She sobered for a moment. "I don't know, sometimes. Some days, things are more uncertain than they've ever been."

"I know what it's like."

""Do you?"

"I do," he said firmly. "Why don't you sit down, Niall?"

"No, I'm fine." After some more prodding, he finally did to shut him up and Susan smiled again, widely. Niall picked up a biscuit and bit into it very purposefully.

"So," Susan was saying, "How is Sirius? I haven't heard from the bloke since he left for that three month excursion to China."

As she pulled her feet up onto the couch, Hermione sighed and leaned the side of her head on her palm. "Last I heard of him, he was in Cairo doing the brochure for Fwooper's Magical Travel. He's rather popular these days, what with the bloody, bloody Britain epidemic and all." She smiled at her own joke; her hair was still damp from the shower and she had put on a trace of lipstick, her reading glasses balanced on the bridge of her nose. One hand rested on the arm of the sofa.

"He never stays in one place for long, does he?"

Niall said, "Sirius sent a postcard yesterday, darling. From Madagascar, I think. Or Singapore."

"There's been so much mail lately," she commented without a change in expression. He had to admire her for that. "What did it say?"

With a grin, Susan said, "He sent me an owl once with some pickup lines in Italian when he was holidaying in Sicily."

"Did you try them out?"

"I was afraid to. It takes a certain personality to pull them off. Not to mention I don't think they would have worked very well - the men I go for usually don't have breasts."

Hermione said, "Sirius." Her lips curved up slightly. "Anyway, anything new from him?"

"Just the usual. Hugs, kisses, and malaria, hopes you're fine and that he'll send another owl soon."

"I'm fine."

"I know, darling. I'm just saying." _Please, not another row_. Relaxing quickly, she brushed it off with a laugh, closing the book in her lap, then placing it carefully on the coffee table next to the tray. Her fingers hovered over it and picked up a hexagonal shaped biscuit with a logo stamped into it; Susan followed suit and took the same one. 

Susan spoke rapidly. "I have a friend who owes me a favor... He's vice president of Lobalug Inc., maybe you've heard of it?"

A frown appeared between her eyes and she ate the rest of her biscuit. "Can't say I have. What do they do?"

"He explained this to me once but I think I was half-asleep at the time. They sell remedial potions, controlled draughts, wizarding products like that."

"What about it?"

Niall added, "I think I might have heard of them. Sounds familiar for some reason. It might've been mentioned to me before."

Susan placed his feet on the coffee table but Hermione, usually fussy about that sort of thing, didn't seem to notice - or ignored it. He glanced over at the clock on the wall and breathed out very quickly; his chest rose and fell in a heartbeat. As he brushed his fringe to one side, "I could owl him, I think they've got a few positions they need to fill and you'd obviously be overqualified. You'd be overqualified for any job," he added rapidly, "but if you're interested, just let me know. Wouldn't be any trouble at all. It really wouldn't," Susan added as she opened her mouth, as if he knew exactly what she was going to say -"honestly, I owe you a few favors myself."

"What's the name of the company again?"

"Lobalug Inc." She seemed to be considering it at least and Niall hoped her pride wouldn't get in the way. _Take it_, he willed. She rubbed her calf thoughtfully and repositioned her leg.

"I'll let you know," she said finally and took another biscuit, popping it into her mouth whole. "I have to think about it." Think about what? "What sort of position is it?"

"I'd have to ask. Not some sort of janitorial gig, mind you. I'm pretty sure of that. It might be worth a try."

"I still have to update my resume."

Niall said, "You said you'd do that on Sunday."

Hermione gave him a very cross look. "So? I just haven't got around to it. I've been-" she stopped and he knew she was about to say _busy_ except that would have been a lie.

Interrupting easily, "Busy, I know. We've all been busy. Don't feel any obligation to take it, really. I know you could get a job with your hands tied behind your back."

"Thanks."

Susan stood up and straightened out his Burberry overcoat, brushing off invisible lint on his sleeve. He smiled again, eclipsing all the others, and it was like the flash of a tanning bed. He should have done toothpaste commercials. Movie star teeth. "I should be going."

"Thanks," Hermione said again, looking a little dazed. "For everything."

* * *

A lone fly flew onto the newspapers, testing the surface with its feet. Cho swatted at it absently and it went away, then landed again in another attempt to annoy her.

"So you're saying..." Ginny prodded, fairly sure of what Cho was going to say but needing it confirmed anyway. Damn evasiveness.

"Think about it: he could be anywhere. He can travel anywhere. He doesn't have to depend on aeroplanes and whatever transport the Muggles are using these days. With magic-" she stopped, looking very pissed off. "This is not good. I think we've been going in the wrong direction."

"Not good," Ginny echoed. "At all."

"Could be bloody _anywhere,_ looking like anybody. There aren't any limits..."

"We can't rule out Greenland, then? And Dupont was sure about this?"

Cho sighed, burying her head in her arms. "We should go and talk to him again about the implications of this. I don't think we quite got the scope of it the first time around. You attach "Muggle" to "criminal" and we automatically think "man with midlife crisis and a few steak knives"."

"It's misleading, is what it is."

Ginny must have spoken too loudly because the librarian set down her book and shot them an annoyed look, then returned to reading. Sitting down in a chair, Ginny pulled it in closer, tapping the end of her pen on the table.

"How's Dupont on the matter?" Ginny said.

"I think he might be able to help. In Britain, we had all sorts of tracking maps, thanks to the Experimental Magic budget, but we didn't really consider that since it works mainly for wizards. And I don't even know if France has any..."

* * *

Harry kept on driving for a while. Farther and farther, staying away from police cars, before finally stopping at a pub. Draco was shaking all over now, his legs, couldn't keep his arms still. He stumbled into a yellow, urine-soaked toilet and threw up. As he washed his face, he looked into the old mirror. His lip was bleeding. He rinsed his mouth and walked out.

Harry and Timothy had sat down and ordered a scotch and a bourbon respectively.

Timothy said, "Well." He blinked slowly and took a drink. Draco placed a damp hand on the table and noted that it was still shaking slightly. "What happened?"

"I think I got them. " He sounded calmer than he felt.

"They nearly got you, 'ey?" Draco took in a breath of air, suddenly aware that it didn't have enough oxygen in it.

Then he looked at Harry and something cold hit him in the gut again. It was a different sort of fear. "Harry-"

"That was Finnigan?" Composed. Took a sip of his drink.

"I don't know. Maybe." He tried to convince himself it wasn't, maybe it hadn't been. Some mistake. Harry probably had his enemies, too. It didn't have to have been Finnigan. It was better if it hadn't been.

"Maybe?" Even less oxygen in the air now. "That was a lucky shot."

"I know." If he had been seventeen again and in the same position, he knew he wouldn't have felt the same. "Do you know where my wand is?"

"Maybe. What do you need it for?"

"You know. In case. If something happens."

The calm slipped for a moment. " 'Something' is going to fucking happen. I just saved your sorry arse, you know that? Without me, you'd be floating in a river somewhere with your dick cut off."

Draco didn't know how to answer except, "I know." And almost as an afterthought, "Thanks."

Timothy wet his lips and ran his fingers through his hair. "Two weeks, 'ey?" he said absently.

"You have a one track mind, Rossini."

* * *

Read? Review!

**Author's Notes**: I know collective_werewolf won't be too happy with me since this chapter does a lot of things-have-to-happen-so-things-can-happen work but things really do start happening in chapter six where mysterious people make appearances, a canon character makes a cameo, Timothy wonders about phones, and somebody is really too nosy.

The road names are from my central London map. There's a joke put in at the suggestion of Ursula with the French names - see if you catch that and the car chase scene was bounced off as many people as possible (including my music teacher) for plausibility. They reminded me that no, the people behind you wouldn't shoot once, miss, then wait for you to shoot them back. Thanks to Winterbloom as well for the advice on that scene. Also written with aid from my Fantastic Beasts book and continuing prods from Kate, my ever-wonderful beta, and an ego-saving session with Siria who informed me about caffeine addiction and a premenstrual Snape (is he a tampon or a pad man?)

Schnoogles to all you lovely reviewer people who keep me going. I doubt I would have made it very far without you. I try to be mildly entertaining when I reply to them on the review boards.


	6. D'accord

**Title:** Bad Faith (06/?)  
**Author name:** Ace  
**Author email:** elel88_2000@hotmail.com  
**Category:** Action/Adventure  
**Sub Category:** Drama  
**Keywords:** paris london auror casino airplane  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** It's 2010 and a chance encounter between Draco Malfoy and the infamous Harry Potter is on a collision course to disaster in a gritty, tense adventure through Muggle London and Paris, France. Ginny and Cho are tracking a suspected killer who may have ties to a certain wizard and Hermione is falling into a downward spiral brought on caffeine and overwork. A Mercedes, guns, car chases, murders, and everything bad for you.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** So here it is.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**BAD FAITH**

**Chapter Six**

**D'ACCORD**

The first thing Harry did when he got back to his flat was throw Draco up against the wall. Draco gasped: it felt like Harry was crushing his windpipe. He could hear his collar ripping as Harry ground him against the plaster. His face was close enough that Draco could see the sweat on Harry's forehead and the bridge of his nose. His breath came out in a strangled gasp.

Harry was in a bad mood.

The back of his neck burned and something hot spread over his shoulders, the base of his spine met the wall. Harry gripped his collar tighter. Draco tried to look straight at him, but his head was thrown back and his throat pressed against the clenched fist that smelt of leather interiors and nicotine. He gritted his teeth to keep from making any noise, from giving Harry that satisfaction, the soles of his feet hovering a hair's breadth above the floor.

"Malfoy, you little -" Sweat dampened his upper lip and forehead and Draco's hands tried to grab onto the flat surface of the wall. His nails clawed at white paint.

A trickle of sweat made a path over his jaw and onto his neck. There was a faint buzzing in his ears, the vein in his temple threatening to break free of his skin.

Harry dropped him. Draco massaged his throat, feeling the blood spread to other parts of his body, and slumped against the wall. "Just- just- get the fuck out of my face," Harry spat. "Can you do that without fucking up or getting a team of hit men on your arse?" He wiped something off his mouth.

"I'm -"

Harry strode over and jabbed him with his index finger. "You know what you are? You're more trouble than you're worth. Who's doing who the favor?" Draco stood still, galvanized, half-afraid and half-pissed off.

Malfoy: it sent a false-fire to his mouth. "Why?"

"What did you say?"

Malfoy: sent another false signal to his mouth. "Why even bother? You don't owe me anything." _What the fuck are you doing? Trying to kill yourself again?_

"You should be bloody grateful -"

"I think you said that already. Why do you even bother keeping me around? I'm nothing but a shitload of trouble, right?"

Harry glowered. Draco tried to reason: if he was going to get kicked out, he would've been anyway.

More silence. A plane flew low overhead, temporarily rattling the windows. "You know," Harry said finally. "They should've told us never to trade drugs for sex."

Draco couldn't tell whether he was being serious or not.

Harry continued, "We'd've never met properly. We'd've been two fucked up souls who were too fucked up to ever give a damn about each other. _This_ wouldn't have happened."

"Is there some reason you're keeping me?"

Draco's original fear had abated and his body relaxed somewhat. The clench of his shoulders loosened, but he kept his eyes trained on Harry, who was still pacing in front of him. He could make a dash to the left, towards the door, if things got ugly. Or he could swing right. Calculating different routes, Draco tensed his legs to be ready to sprint.

Harry kept pacing, tracing over an invisible eight marked on the floor. "This afternoon, not now, maybe later, something's come up..." more to himself than to Draco.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"One more incident like that and you're out."

"How- how- can I -" the question died on his lips. At this point, he wasn't going to argue the impossible.

Harry, turning back to face him, "Stay here."

"You're going somewhere?"

"No. No, just stay here. Don't leave yet, I mean..."

Draco felt oddly amused. "Are you still thinking about making me your sex slave?"

"No," Harry said shortly. "You know it's cold out there, right?" It sounded like he was trying to hint at something.

"Stop being so fucking _cryptic_, Potter." What Draco didn't say was: It's making me nervous as hell.

"You owe me."

"I thought we'd already established that."

* * *

Arlene was feeding Kitty when the man rang the doorbell. She hadn't been expecting anybody, so the first thing she did was to peek between the shutters. Seeing the BMW parked by the curb, Arlene ignored the cat meowing pathetically around her ankles and glanced into the mirror. After straightening out the shoulders of her top and yanking her collar back into place, she cracked open the door with a careful twist. She regarded the man standing there - black hair, sunglasses, very carefully groomed. Satisfied that he wasn't a salesman or a tramp, she finally opened the door fully.

"Is Mr. Harding here?"

"Who might you be?" Her current boarder hadn't told her to expect a visitor; odd fellow, really. Arlene could sniff out any strangeness in an instant. The funny ones: they always paid their rent and showed up on time for breakfast, though. She kept an eye on her boarder, for any sign of something off about him.

"He's expecting me." Didn't answer her question. Arlene debated for a moment whether or not to press any further but the man looked respectable enough.

She pursed her lips and looked at him again, rooting out any clues, but there were none. "All right," she said finally, making as big of a production of it as she could. "Wait here." The door snapped shut and locked automatically behind her. As she walked up the stairs, her hip pained her where it had fractured six years before after a particularly nasty fall. By the time she reached the top, she was short of breath and a hot stitch had gathered in her side. Kitty followed behind her with far more ease, still mewing for her lunch. "Now, now," Arlene told her and the cat stared at her reproachfully, tail swishing back and forth as she watched.

"Mr. Harding?" Arlene stopped in front of the second door to her left, regaining her breath. Knocking sharply, "Mr. Harding?" Just as she was growing suspicious as to what he was doing, the door opened.

"Yes?"

"You have a visitor. He's downstairs by the door if he hasn't already left. Do you know who he is?"

He didn't seem surprised and smiled a little in an infuriatingly pleased way, rubbing the five o'clock shadow on his jaw. "Could we use the parlor? It'll only be about half an hour, I promise, an hour, tops. If you're expecting anybody, we'll just go somewhere else-"

"That's fine, I suppose." As he walked past Kitty, still waiting impatiently, she said, "Next time you have a visitor, I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me first," very pointedly.

"Sorry about that."

Arlene peeked into the room to check for anything out of the ordinary. It was comfortable enough, if a little cramped, and the bed had been made neatly, a stack of fresh laundry folded in a corner. This one was too tidy, too quiet, though. Those were the ones who always called you ma'am and opened doors for you and then they had your jewels shoved into their pockets before you knew what happened. Like Gertrude who had her great aunt's ruby brooch stolen, the poor dear. A real shame. All sorts of shady types these days, doing god-knows-what in god-knows-where.

Feeling indignant, Arlene snooped around for any other clues, maybe a lock pick or a dodgy manual. She was almost disappointed when she didn't find any.

She walked slowly down the stairs, gripping onto the cool, varnished banister for support. Kitty followed at her heels as she descended stiffly. From a cabinet, she took out a can of Fancy Feast and opened it, spooning it out into the bowl she'd given the cat for her fourth birthday. "Life's easy for you, isn't it?" she said, mostly to herself. Kitty didn't look up.

Taking a few steps closer to the parlor, Arlene stood a few feet away from the doorway, making sure she wasn't in easy view. Mr. Harding took a quick glance around the room as if expecting British Intelligence agents to swoop down on him and, taking the pen clipped to his shirt pocket, scribbled something on a napkin. Curiosity piqued, she went back to the kitchen as fast as her hip would allow her and quickly arranged a few cups and a lukewarm teapot on an old tray with Japanese flowers pasted onto it.

"Tea?" They both looked up and the visitor looked nervous now, fidgeting with his shirt cuff. He looked like her first boyfriend, at least the chin and hair. When he turned his head, Arlene could have sworn she saw some sort of scar on his forehead. Odd.

Mr. Harding had taken _her_ spot on the couch; he used up all the space in a sprawling position as if it was his furniture. She set down the tray a little harder than was necessary with an efficient clink.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," the boarder said, suddenly courteous and polite again. He took a less comfortable position and again seemed more like an impossibly well-behaved guest than a host. "The tea is lovely. If you don't mind-"

Sensing what he was going to say, "Oh, I'll be going along." It seemed the visitor sighed, in relief, perhaps. One of them coughed and they both fell into an awkward silence. Arlene left hurriedly and closed the parlor door behind her.

As she pried open the shutters again, the BMW was still parked there. Maybe he was one of those successful lawyer types; there was no shortage of clients these days. The shutters closed with a metallic rustle and Kitty, who had taken up her usual post on the kitchen windowsill, was busy bird watching, probably to be followed by a catnap.

Maybe the visitor could tell her what to do about that nasty falling out between Melissa and Jake. Such a shame, really. She paused to wonder about his profession again before taking up her own post in the bathroom adjoined to the parlor.

There was a mounted leopard head hanging on the wall of the room where her boarder and the visitor were talking. Arlene had found it at the Portobello Road Market a few years back and had hung it up, not as a conversation point or a decoration, but to cover the hole she had drilled in the connecting walls.

It was a fascinatingly ugly thing, really - the glass eyes had been chipped when she bought it and tufts of hair had fallen out, giving the appearance of a stuffed toy bought in bad taste, then abandoned. Over the hole was a poster advertising out-of-style shoes; she carefully lifted the tape and placed an ear to the opening. If she had wanted to, Arlene could have seen a piece of the painting hanging on the opposite wall through the opening in the leopard's mouth.

They were talking quietly. So quietly, in fact, she had to strain to hear their voices. Even though her hip had been giving her a hard time and the arthritis acted up during rainy seasons, her ears hadn't gone yet.

"Harding?" That was the visitor. Scottish, maybe.

"Name of an old friend."

"What happened to him?" That sounded like a dare, which confused her even more.

"Her, you mean. She's dead." Arlene pressed her ear even harder against the hole and placed the cupped side of her hand to her head.

"Oh."

"You came. Is that an agreement?"

"Everyone seems to want a definite answer."

Chuckling, "It certainly makes it easier."

"Who's the old woman?" She bristled and wished that the BMW outside wasn't his. Lawyer, her foot. Some hoodlum, more like. Probably stole those clothes from a second-hand shop.

"I'm just staying here for the moment. I have to keep moving."

"So, Wright, what's your offer?" There was something distinctly nervous, apprehensive about his voice, but excited all the same. She almost missed the "Wright" part and wondered if her hearing was starting to go as well. Putting it down on the mental checklist, she placed it under buying a birthday gift for Melissa. Earrings? Did Melissa even have pierced ears? She had to call Richard about that; he'd know.

"You'd be surprised at what I know about you, Harry."

"You do." A pause. "What school did I go to?"

"Hogwarts. You finished in 1997; your marks seemed to have dropped dramatically in your final year as well." He was hinting at something; Arlene wondered what it was.

"So you know about-"

"Triwizard champion in your fourth year. I know who your friends are, or should I say, were? You have a very impressive past, especially that bit about your scar. Tell me, do you remember getting that?"

"But you're a Muggle." It came out in a disbelieving, empty tone. She moved up "check up on hearing" to the first slot.

"So?"

"You're not... surprised by this? Almost no one knows about that anymore. It's in the past."

"When my keys disappeared four times in one day, I knew it wasn't natural."

"Very funny."

"Such morals in your people, Harry, Not a properly corrupted one in the lot. You sent off all the useful ones into Azkaban, did you?"

"Some are corruptible."

The boarder sighed. "They're young. It would take time. You, on the other hand..."

"There are others." Sounding suspicious, "The sort of things you pull off - on second thoughts, I wouldn't be surprised if you already had magical help."

"I'm just good at hiding and blending into the crowd. It's a specialty of mine. You know what they called me? Houdini. You know, after that magician?"

Flatly, "He wasn't magic."

"Jaded, aren't you? Aren't we all? I make them cry in their beds at night. Even got the French thinking I've got a wand. That abracadabra shit you can work. Really funny, you should see them."

"Mail me the tickets sometime."

"I will. Box seats. You can even be in the show."

Arlene was more confused than ever. Obviously, her boarder was mentally disturbed. And who was this visitor named Harry? She shifted on the lid of the toilet. As soon as they had finished, she was going to find some reason to get him out. Maybe the electricity had shorted out? She had a relative staying over?

"So, what do you say?"

"What's in it for me?"

Mr. Harding (or was he?) laughed and said something, very low; it escaped her ears. There might've been some sort of movement but knowing she couldn't see anything, Arlene just pressed her ear even tighter against the drilled hole.

"Quite a lot," the visitor said in a strained voice.

"It is, isn't it?" In desperation, Arlene put her eye up to the spot to see if she could catch anything that was going on. All she could see was a piece of the Monet reproduction, which didn't look like anything. She ought to take that one down; after all, she wasn't speaking to that ratty Jake any more and Melissa seeing it on her next visit might upset her. Delicate nerves in that girl. Arlene wasn't sure which side of the family that came from.

There was more shuffling and the visitor said, "Perhaps. What do you want me to do?"

She could hear the smile in the boarder's voice. "Do you see that leopard on the wall?"

"How couldn't I? Ugly piece of shit, isn't it?

She froze. The drip of the leaking tap water amplified.

"I'm not stupid, you see," the boarder continued. "If you'd just lift it-"

* * *

The owl rapping on the window of the hotel room was half-frozen by the time Cho finally woke up and grumpily let it in. It shivered on the dresser top next to a tray of complimentary soaps and shampoos, then hooted angrily when its feathers started to defrost. Never a morning person, Cho plucked the parchment from its claws and pushed it out. Ginny watched, eyelashes sticking together with the last residue of sleep, and remembered the stories of the sandman Bill used to tell her.

"Poor thing," she croaked and pulled the sheets up higher.

Cho held out the parchment whose heavy wax seal she'd broken. "It's a reply from Dupont, well, his secretary anyway. I think the signature's stamped."

"That's insulting," Ginny remarked, feeling more awake. The heating had been left on overnight and the room was stiflingly hot, especially with the heavy bed sheets over her, like being weighted down with heated stones.

"We have an appointment with him today - not for very long, but it's something, at least. They'll probably provide us with whatever equipment they've just found. With any luck, it'll be dusty fifteenth century armor," she predicted. "The good thing about working in a paranoid country is that the technology is always up to date."

Ginny shrugged and slid off the bed, grabbing the top she had flung over a chair and a pair of thick, unbecoming trousers. Outside, the light was still gray but the hotel room had been decorated in overpowering shades of red and yellow with a healthy dose of gold to balance it out. "You're the one who gets excited when they tell us there's a new type of fastener for our knapsacks."

"So?"

"We'll work with what we get. If manual searching doesn't do it, I'm sure they've got _something_ that'll help. Almost every country has the WTD somewhere; of course, Britain has the most advanced version. It could probably track the movement of firewood shipments if we wanted it to."

"I'll have it Summoned, but it's probably too far. There are a few other transport systems these days, none of them are too secure, and it usually takes a few days. But we're pressed for time."

Cho put the parchment down on a bar of soap with Pavillon de la Reine inscribed on it, and yanked a brush through her hair - they were required to keep it under shoulder length but lately, Cho had been slipping. Ginny put a foot into one trouser leg, then the other, and felt too tired to bring herself to dress any further.

"Well, they could owl them over, I suppose," Cho said dubiously and pulled on her jacket, leaving the front open. "Technically, it would be possible, though with all the wards put up to avoid that sort of thing, it'd wreak hell."

"That's a no, then." Ginny stared down at the waist bunched up down by her ankles and thought, _wouldn't it be great if they made clothing that put itself on?_

"That's an extremely doubtful yes."

"Is there a difference?" The energy required to talk seemed like such a waste. Ravenclaws - they always talked around in circles. Never could get a straight answer out of them.

"Not really." She gave Ginny an impatient look. "They won't let you into the Ministry if you refuse to wear clothing."

Yawning, she tried to stand up finish dressing but had to sit down as a bout of fatigue pressed against her skull. She shut her eyes and said, "Then I won't go."

"What about breakfast?"

Opening her eyes, Cho was clipping on her wand holster and twirling the eight inches, cedar, core of Re'em skin between her fingers.

"I knew you'd come to your senses. Stop grumbling and get dressed. We've got to get there by ten."

Ginny said something under her breath and Cho gave her a withering look but otherwise ignored it - it was too early in the morning to disagree and Ginny would have taken it back with some prodding.

* * *

_Two weeks_. Timothy liked the feel of these words and the way it sounded when he spoke them out loud: solid, definable. It was just close enough to be real but far away enough to wait.

Harry had lied.

He'd said, two weeks, Rossini. You'll go in two weeks. Now Timothy was in Heathrow and feeling lucky that he hadn't had to shove the money up his arse, literally. The check-in man was looking at him funny, he was sure of it and the guy took his passport and examined it, anything wrong, he'd asked. Eyeballing the passport for a few more moments, no, nothing. Gave him another look and Timothy'd said, the freak show doesn't start until five.

He didn't feel ready. But how could he complain? Sorry, Harry, but wait another week and I can go. I don't feel like I'm up to it just right now. So he just shut his mouth and packed his suitcases with whatever he could find, took his ticket, and got in a cab.

Timothy half-listened to the safety talk by a pretty flight attendant with perky tits and a nice smile - in case of low cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the panel above, life jackets under the seat in case the plane crashes in which case you'll probably die anyway but at least your body'll float for awhile. Everyone in his section looked like nice, law-abiding people: yuppies, a few snobby-looking families, techies with their ultra-light laptops. Timothy drew the side of his hand across his mouth, drained his glass and tried to relax. It was hard: he felt so wound up, broken up, nervous as hell. Was that the only thing he was feeling these days?

The flight attendant wheeled a cart around with lunch. He wondered how she kept on that fucking smile, not a fuck-me smile of course, the kind of smile you give to cute little dogs and children. Chicken, beef, or fish? A smile. Here's your napkin. A smile. He just kept his eyes on her chest, beef, thanks, and then slipped on the headphones. Fell asleep. Timothy dreamed about the ace of spades and two of a kind and a black and red roulette wheel. When he woke up, he had a splitting headache and a different attendant, more heavyset, was passing out sealed packages of honey-roasted peanuts. Some shit movie was playing; he watched it for a while before dozing off, wishing he'd taken the Dramamine.

And what do you know, Newark, New Jersey already. Things always seemed to happen faster when you weren't ready for them. The techies were closing their laptops, the yuppies picking up their designer briefcases, and Timothy just wanted another drink to calm his nerves.

Walking off the plane felt surreal.

The connecting flight had been delayed so he wandered around the shops, looking at glossy handbags and silk ties in the Duty Free shop, then bought a gooey cinnamon roll and a coffee at Cinnabon. Walking through Terminal A, he passed by a Wok-n-Roll and Starbucks, paused by an ATM, feeling the sudden urge to call Harry as he licked the last of the sugar off his fingers and knuckles. Well-dressed families and couples, just reeking of morality and success, ignored his rumpled outfit and kept a consistent six-foot distance.

He threw the styrofoam cup towards a dustbin politely marked, "Keep our airport litter free," not bothering to pick it up when he missed.

Propping his suitcase against the seat, Timothy sat down on one of the chairs by the lifts and tried to relax, but his legs felt stiff and he kept on having to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Finally, a male voice said Newark to Atlantic City, passengers please board your flight and he got up, his senses going double-time.

The plane this time was smaller, crappier looking, with separating curtains made of vomit-green fabric and what looked like white shower curtain rings. The first class section in the front wasn't much different from the coach and his mouth froze when a man in a blue vest asked if he'd like anything to drink: water, soda, juice? If you need anything, just ask. Timothy couldn't even bring himself to nod.

He wasn't sure if he liked the way his shoulders pressed against the seat when the plane rushed forward or the way he felt when the wheels met the long, thin pavement again as they said, ladies and gentleman, welcome to Atlantic City. He wasn't sure if he wanted to get off.

Have a nice trip. Don't get yourself killed. The sunlight was brighter over here than in Britain, still a little on the chilly side but not much snow on the ground, at least not in the airport. He took off his belt, a chain around his neck, a cheap watch, and walked through the metal detector. Threading his belt back on the other side, the man didn't even look up.

The luggage trolley kept on circling around and what if it got lost? Confiscated? Where the fuck was it? Finally, he found it under a giant purple suitcase and kept up a brisk, snap, snap pace, don't look at anybody, don't look suspicious if he had dressed in some suit some Calvin Klein rip-off it wouldn't be so bad oh fuck there was a cop what the fuck was a cop doing here don't look at him. Don't look at him. The cop didn't stop him and he walked even faster, then slower; he couldn't look suspicious.

There was a taxi waiting for him - at least Harry hadn't lied about that part. Name's Joe, the bloke behind the wheel said in some accent; Timothy couldn't identify it. Cage's Hotel Casino, he just said. Hitting the slots already? Joe asked. You feel lucky today? Nah, I just have to talk to somebody.

"Where you from?" Joe drove worse than Harry on a bad day; he kept looking back and drove with one hand, the other resting out the open window. "Lemme guess, you're one of those bloody, bloody Brits?"

"Yeah," Timothy said tersely.

Joe did a bad imitation of some Eastenders actor that started with "bloody hell" and went downhill from there and ended with "what did you think?"

"Hey, look, nice building there," he said, avoiding the question. Couldn't Harry have got him a driver who could drive? Holy shit, it _was_ a nice building. He guessed it'd probably look even nicer at night, all lit up.

"That's Trump's. He owns half the town," he said and hit the brakes, hard. Timothy lurched forward and swore. "Sorry 'bout that. You know, I saw Anna Diego there once, I swear."

"Who's Anna Diego?"

Joe faked a shock and placed both hands up to his chest, abandoning the wheel. "My man, you've never heard of Anna? How do you Brits jack off at night?"

Timothy pointed to another building. "Hey, look at that one there..."

At least he was keeping his mind off this Thede. The name brought up the image of a muscled giant with dark, slicked-back hair and a moustache. He felt a little sick, actually, and blamed it on the jet lag.

The hotels and casinos that lined the boardwalk like super sized Monopoly playing pieces made him nervous as well, each looking like it was trying to outflash the last. He wondered idly how much money people lost at the slots and tables everyday.

"Here we are." The cab stopped in front of a tan building with "Cage's" emblazoned on the front in what promised to be red neon at night and a panel of dark, tinted windows that glittered even in the weak light. "Wishing you luck, man. Make sure you have enough to get back."

"Oh, that won't be a problem." It was the first positive thought he'd had since walking into Heathrow. "It won't be a problem at all."

* * *

"Tell him it has to do with Harry Potter."

The secretary looked up from her computer keyboard, which had a bag of takeaway sitting next to it from Kanakura around the corner. The top of her hair was carefully parted and the dark roots were just starting to show through copper red. She cast an appraising glance at him, paused a mid-second between chewing her Winterfresh, then picked up the phone. "There's someone to see you ... not, it's not Arnold again ... he said something about Harry, yes, that Harry ... should I send him in? Sure, fine. Will do." She turned back to Timothy and pointed in a vague direction. "Down there, the door's labeled." Already typing at an alarming speed, her attention returned to the computer screen.

He tried to imagine Harry walking to the same door, only Harry would know what to expect, Harry'd know what to say. Timothy tried to remember what he'd told him: what to mention, depositing the money that was hidden in every crevice of his luggage, the note. Stopping in front of the door, he shuffled his feet and knocked. This was it. Don't fuck it up now. Fifty percent. A big, fat five-oh.

"Come in." The left wall was covered in awards, photos, autographs of various celebrities of which only a few Timothy recognized. "Why don't you sit down?"

He did, gripping the armrests to steady himself.

"What's this about Harry?" Thede leaned over the desk, placing his elbows on the surface. Looked friendly enough, straight teeth, brown hair shot through with some gray, the pattern of laugh lines around his eyes. "He in trouble?"

"No, no..." Timothy fumbled around in his pocket and for a moment, thought he had lost it and felt like he had swallowed liquid nitrogen. He wet his lips quickly and his fingers met the folded envelope. He pushed it across to Thede.

The casino owner took it, ripping the seal carefully where Harry had licked it shut. He drew out the letter inside, unfolded it onto the desk, flattening it out with his fingers, and read it without any change of expression. Then he glanced over at a man standing in the corner. Bug, muscle-bound, at least 6'8". Could crush Timothy under his little toe. Scoop out his brains for his toast.

"So?" he finally said, the silence unnerving him.

"So, Mr.-" Thede glanced back at the letter, "- Rossini, you'll be taking his place?"

"Yeah."

"You ever gamble?" Still smiling. Timothy was just trying not to look at who he presumed to be the bodyguard standing in the corner.

"A few times." And he had lost every, single bloody cent.

"We've got 176 table games and over three thousand slot machines, you know. How much is it this time?"

Timothy repeated the amount he'd been told. Thede whistled and he liked the sound of that, somehow.

"So it's been a good year?"

"Do I get a comp?"

Standing up, Thede walked towards him like an old friend. "For that, you get pretty much whatever you damn want. Anything, just ask. Rentals, rooms, meals, VIP passes, fly in your own Japanese chef..."

He tried to think of what Harry might ask for and his mind wiped itself blank. "A scotch?"

* * *

The weather outside had eased up a bit and in finding an empty alley to Apparate from, neither woman encountered any citizens, disturbed or otherwise. The French Wizarding district consisted of several interconnected alleys, much like Diagon and Knockturn, only far more cramped and confusing in the seedier alleys. The _Dinde D'écarlate _section housed the more prosperous: high ranking Ministry officials, businesswizards, and robe designers, for the most part. The filthy rich owned villas out in the countryside and kept flats on the outskirts of the Wizarding community, ones which Ginny probably wouldn't mind owning.

A few years before, they had voted to move the Ministry headquarters to the middle-class section, separated from the _Dinde D'écarlate_ by only a we magical gate. The official Apparating spot was a spare backroom of a shop called _Couleurs du Monde _that sold overpriced, over-decorated creations that reminded Ginny of peacock headdresses. Several enthusiastic assistants, glittering with sequined zeal, descended upon them like particularly tacky vultures until they realized they were Aurors.

"You need to teach me how to say, 'no thank you,'" Ginny reminded her.

"There are probably more forceful ways to put it."

"Yes, but we don't need the French thinking poorly of us. What's that?" She heard a chanting, growing louder as they moved closer, and a solid mass of jackets and cameras surging against the cold brick front of the Ministry headquarters.

"Looks like the press."

"What're they here for?"

Cho shrugged. "Don't know." She automatically placed her hand over her wand in a ready position to draw it out. "We check in through the side door."

"What're they saying?" For some reason, Ginny had never got used to the press, even though she had to keep up with it back home. There always something about a reporter that made her distinctly uncomfortable; while Cho had done an interview or two for the Daily Prophet, Ginny had declined, and the way the editor had spoken to her had made her feel like she was hiding something.

"Wait..." she squinted and paused for a second. "Sounds something like, 'We demand the truth.' Except it sounds a lot catchier in French."

"If they demand the truth, why don't they ever print it?" Ginny tapped her wand on the door knocker and whispered the password they'd been given, wondering for a moment whether she'd pronounced it incorrectly until it swung open.

An annoyed looking witch held out a hand for their wands, muttered a spell she couldn't quite catch, and a column of colored smoke rose from the ends. Handing them back as if she were sure they had somehow conned their way in, she said something in French, Cho nodded, and they ascended a set of stairs with a magical barrier around it. The rooms were in a state of blatant disarray and scraps of multicolored parchment were tacked up on the walls, each more hastily scribbled than the last.

Dupont looked less tired than the last time Ginny had seen him. He spoke clearly, although still stoop-shouldered like a frail gentleman hunching over a cane, and his eyes had a set determination to them - in some ways, he reminded her of the late Albus Dumbledore, only he didn't have the same aura of infallibility and wisdom.

"How has your work been progressing?"

"Fine," Cho said quickly.

"Just fine." Well, they hadn't received any life-threatening injuries and in Ginny's book, that was enough to justify it.

The air smelled faintly of incense, as if it had once been a holy temple, but was overlaid with something less sacred she couldn't quite put a finger on. Glass figurines dozed on the shelves, all presumably from the 2005 International Wizarding Convention: an elephant with opaque tusks, a dove, an impossibly delicate model of a Chinese Fireball. All had a thin coating of dust like someone had given up on keeping the office clean. Dupont rearranged the stacks of folders and papers on the desk but he was fighting a losing battle. The memos and empty cartons looked like they were plotting to overthrow him.

"Glad to hear it," Dupont said, not sounding convinced but letting it pass. He started coughing and doubled over, hands cupped over his mouth. Cho looked worried and reached over in an automatic gesture to pat his back but he straightened up again. "I'm fine, but thank you."

"Where's your assistant; Gabrielle, I think it was?"

"She's gone." A sober smile.

"Gone? You don't mean-" Ginny interjected, not wanting to finish the sentence. Cho nudged her side with a well-placed elbow.

"No, no, nothing of that sort," he replied. "Thankfully, nothing like that. Since our killer targets only Ministry workers, now we have quite a few vacancies. Did you hear about Jacques Montier resigning from his post? It is a tragedy, truly. Some of our brightest minds are deciding it is not worth the risk anymore."

Ginny said, "I'm sorry." And then, wanting to say more, "We're doing our best."

"I know." He gave them a reassuring smile as if consoling young children about the bogeyman under their beds and drank a half-glass of brilliant orange, made a slight face, then set it back down. "I've brought you here today - there's a new development. I think it might be some help." The Minister paused to let this sink in. "About Brian Wright."

"What about him?" Ginny sounded a little bitter and she was. Taking another vicious gulp of coffee, she burned her mouth. Again. _I don't have time to be chasing after Jack the Ripper_. The paper cut on her thumb where a library pamphlet had left its mark had closed and started to itch. _Don't touch it. It'll heal faster_. She scratched it anyway. "There wasn't much evidence in the first place."

"Ah, but Auror Weasley, that is changing. The Muggle police who are following Wright have found that he is on the move again; this time, intelligence reports say that he is in Britain. In or around the London area, specifically."

"Does it have to do with anything here?" Cho asked.

"We are thinking it might. The problem is that he is a very difficult man to find and seems to pass over borders at will, which is part of the reason why we suspected he had magical aid. A photograph of Jules Cheever was found in a murdered cabdriver's hand with the number "12/14" on the back. We think it might have been because the cabdriver knew too much, whatever it was. It is too late now, however, to question him."

One of Dupont's problems, Ginny observed, was his tendency to speak the obvious.

"There never seems to be much evidence," Cho observed. "Most of it seems circumstantial."

"You know how it is. I cannot take the risk that it was by chance the photograph found its way into his hand. We have to operate on whatever we can find in this case."

"Isn't that an awfully long shot, though?"

He sighed and resumed busying his hands by squaring off stacks of paper. "Everything in this case is a long shot. Nothing has ever happened of this sort in the French Wizarding community - even the murders in 1916 do not mirror this one. I trust you have found there is little to be found, even after interviews and searching around Paris."

Ginny didn't know how she could answer besides agreeing.

"So..." Cho said, finding words. "What now?"

"What now, indeed." Dupont smiled, tired, but a smile nonetheless. "You know as well as I that to continue your work here would not get you any further than where you are now."

"We could do more interviews, really-" Cho interrupted.

"- and learn nothing you do not already know," he said firmly. "There is no time to waste at the moment."

"So," Ginny echoed. "Now what?" Dupont drew a spoon out of the air and stirred around the dregs in his glass.

With her hands in her lap, Cho crossed her legs and stared very intently at her dragon hide boots and the fraying shoelaces. The door clicked open and a haggard-looking witch with a patterned beige scarf around her neck poked her head in.

_"Les journalistes... ils ont réussi à entrer, et les gardes ne peuvent rien faire."_

Dupont stood up and slammed a fist on his desk. He said something that Ginny was sure was probably rude in French. "_Tu plaisantes, n'est-ce pas_?" He no longer looked frail and exhausted - an angry bitterness had etched itself onto his face like a split-second capture of emotion, his jaw clenched. "_Fais quelque chose_!"

Ginny leaned over and said softly, "What's he saying?"

Placing a finger to her lips, Cho shook her head, keeping her eyes on Dupont. "Not now." p> 

The woman ran a hand through her hair and said rapidly, _"Les journalistes... ils ont passé les gardes chargés de la sécurité, les gardes ne peuvent rien faire... pas question de leur dire non."_

Dupont sank back into his seat. "_Trouve des faux-fuyants. N'importe quoi_". She left. He drained the rest of his drink and in the confusion, threw the glass into the dustbin.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Ginny asked, "What happened?" He didn't answer and she wondered if she could take it back.

He finally answered, "The reporters. Did you see them outside? They got through."

Cho said quietly, "They broke in?"

"It won't be long now... I'll have to speak to them."

"But- but- what could you tell them? It's about the murders, isn't it?" Ginny searched his face carefully for any clue and for once, wished she had been Cho. _I will not ask her. I will not ask her._

He shrugged as if it didn't mean anything. "It looks worse on paper. They don't need to do much sensationalizing for once to make us seem like bumbling idiots; after all, fighting this is taking shots in the dark. No solid suspects, anarchy, chaos - it makes for a good tabloid article."

Outside, Ginny could hear the faint chant of the reporters and protesters, then closer, probably in the building.

"You will be Portkeyed back to Britain and follow up on Brian Wright. He is our last hope before they completely overthrow us and establish a new government." It was an odd moment of humor from him.

It didn't even register with Ginny that she was going home.

"I trust you are familiar with the London area."

Cho said, "Only too well."

"If this is another shot in the dark, so be it." Dupont placed his fingers up to his temples. "We don't have anywhere near the magical technology the British Ministry of Magic has put in place. Perhaps that will help you."

"Maybe it will," Cho said optimistically. "Who knows."

Dupont started, "He will probably be under a different name, a different appearance..."

Ginny laughed grimly. "You don't know how many tracking and locating spells the Experimental Magic Department came up with after the Brighton Bombings."

"We'll need to be cleared before we use them-" Cho said, in typical fashion, and Ginny was reminded why she wasn't best friends with her partner.

Dupont dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Permission is no problem. Anything - I will see to it personally that you are able to use it."

"If only they said that more often," Ginny said, "our job would be that much easier."

"You know, you're right about that. If we had had the Veritaserum cleared back in that case in September with the Hudson family, we wouldn't've had to -"

Ginny winced. "Don't say it."

* * *

Harry opened the drawer in his room after tossing his jacket onto the sofa. Frank would replace the windows for the Mercedes; not happily, but Harry knew he would, all the same. He took out Draco's wand, looked at it for a second, then as if on a whim, pointed it at the lampshade and said, "_Engorgio."_ Except, of course, nothing happened.

"Stupid fucking..." he threw it back into the desk and shoved the drawer shut.

Brian Wright didn't know everything. But if Draco could still cast an Imperius, work some of that abracadabra shit, he might still be in business. Taking the napkin out of his pocket and staring intently at the figure on it, he crumpled it and shoved it back in.

Draco was sleeping, or at least it looked like he was, in the guest room with one arm flung over the side of the bed. He hadn't bothered changing out of his day clothes, mostly because Harry hadn't bothered to waste money on sleepwear and besides, weren't tramps used to sleeping in their clothing? Harry looked at the back of Draco's head for a few moments, trying to sort out his problems and put them in order. Draco slept on his stomach, his face buried somewhere in the pillow.

Swallowing, he remembered the wand back in the drawer, remembering that Draco bloody _owed him_. The trouble might've been worth it. Might have. If he could just get him to agree to it.

If he split the money - but he was splitting everything these days, first with Rossini and now Draco? Harry wondered if threatening would do more harm than good.

Fuck, he let Malfoy drive around in his cars, eat his food, even wear his clothes. There wasn't anything more he could do besides hold a gun to his head. That way wasn't foolproof, either, when you wanted somebody to do anything - it only worked as a quick fix. Loyalty, yeah, that worked better. Butter them up, let them think you're great friends and some people'd melt right in your hands. Draco, he was a question mark for him. Harry didn't know how much Draco had changed since seventh year, after all, seventh year had changed Harry, too.

Read? Review!

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Newark Int'l may not be entirely correct and probably isn't, same goes for Atlantic City. All shops do exist in Terminal A although I'm not sure as to the elevators or products offered. ;) A few casino details were inspired by the Trump's Taj homepage and a few details from _Glitz_ were used in the office and a James Ellroy short story. (must get new reading material) Heathrow does not have flights to Atlantic City and it really should to make my life easier. _Dinde D'écarlate_ should translate into "scarlet turkey". Yes, I'm strange.

Excessive amounts of this chapter were written under the influence of Pat Benatar's Love is a Battlefield and Journey's Ask The Lonely. This is some of the most vile evil I've produced in a while. Bg schnoogles to Kate and everyone in chat rooms and ljs who put up with my random questioning. And to you **lurkers **out there, show yourselves! You scare me. Oh yes, in case you haven't noticed after reading six chapters for whatever reason, Bad Faith will not have much focus on ships. You'll live. :)

Feel free to ask me any questions in your review, by email, or at my yahoo group.


	7. Is is Necessary That You Breathe

**Title:** Bad Faith (07/?)  
**Author name:** Ace  
**Author email:** elel88_2000@hotmail.com  
**Category:** Action/Adventure  
**Sub Category:** Drama  
**Keywords:** ministry creevey brian wright  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA  
**Summary:** It's 2010. Harry Potter is going to hell. The world of Bloody Bloody Britain is crumbling in shootouts and bombings. The cigarette smoke is so thick the face of Draco Malfoy can barely be seen as he begs for money on the Muggle streets. Harry's dealings are drawing him closer and closer to the wizarding world, and Aurors Ginny and Cho are only beginning to understand their case. Fast, gritty, unrelenting, and bloody.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** Written pre-OotP, although not rendered very AU considering its premise was rather AU in the first place. Chapter title is from "Respire" by Mickey 3D. Yahoo group here. To recap: Harry met Brian Wright at lady's house. Ginny and Cho going back to London. Harry's spell didn't work.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**BAD FAITH**

**Chapter 7**

**IT IS NECESSARY THAT YOU BREATHE**

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

Harry fumbled with the gearshift; the BMW didn't have the same ease of handling as his Mercedes did. Draco knew that, by lunchtime, the sun would burn away the fog which had descended overnight. It had a blue tint like cigarette smoke in the right light. He absently ran a hand up and down his seatbelt.

Draco wasn't sure he wanted to know, anyway.

The passing buildings were like old vices welcoming him back - they reminded him of himself, each one a little less well-kept than the last, each one a little shabbier. Occasionally, one had a window broken or had boards nailed over them in a futile attempt to prevent further deterioration.

Draco glanced back at Harry, whose profile was impassive, fixed on the damp road ahead. They drove past a few restaurants open for breakfast, and his stomach grumbled; but Draco didn't say anything, feeling he'd already pushed his luck far enough yesterday.

There was a sense of déjà vu - the tarot parlor, the strip club; and for a moment, Draco could almost identify the place where Harry's Mercedes had been parked a few weeks previously.

"This is the same place. From before, when you visited Edwin." _And beat up some poor bloke._

"It is," he said; and Draco didn't detect any animosity underlying his words, just the sarcasm he'd begun to accept as normal. "Do we need to stop so you can get a quickie?"

"No," he said, wondering which side of Harry he liked better. "I mean, I'm fine."

Harry traced the bridge of his nose with his middle finger; for the first time, it looked as if he were tired. Draco remembered how back at Hogwarts, Harry had always had a boyish look about him - his face having a shape that Draco thought would always make him look a few years younger than he actually was; he had been shit at keeping his keeping his emotions under control.

Draco had been more used to the transience of Narcissa's emotional displays and stiff, lip-curling approval from Lucius. From Harry, there was sometimes anger, most of the time, nothing.

The car stopped. Draco recognized the house; he glanced at the glove compartment: his first find was here... The fags were long gone and he'd nearly forgotten about the Kama Sutra. Expecting Harry to tell him, "Wait here," Draco's hand was inexplicably moving towards the compartment handle like a bad rerun.

"Get out," was what Harry said instead. Draco heard the door click and fall shut behind him. The locks sprang open with a touch from the remote control and he undid his seatbelt clumsily, placing a foot outside.

Harry said, "Come on," impatience audible. The door slammed shut behind Draco, too hard. He winced but Harry didn't notice.

He rang the doorbell and waited in a kind of still anticipation. "He said he'd be here," Harry muttered, swearing quietly. A few more presses in rapid succession, the buzzing audible from outside.

The door opened, showing a weedy looking man with thin, ash-blond hair and a gaze that made Draco feel distinctly uncomfortable. "Cardona," Harry said amiably. The man nodded a greeting, his spine relaxing. "Can I see you after...?"

"Of course. He's right in there."

"Who?" Draco asked, not expecting an answer and not getting one.

The house smelled strange, a mix of something clinical with an oddly familiar dark undercurrent. A few broken chairs were propped up against the wall and the paint colors chosen seemingly at random. In the few rooms where doors were open, a few looked well decorated; others were left almost empty. 

Harry seemed to know exactly where he was going; he must have been here often before. Why was he here now? Tugging at the sleeves of his jacket, Draco followed him through a hallway, and past a marble statue which stood underneath an abstract print of cubes and circles.

Walking into a sparely furnished room, he saw a TV and a round table set with white candles, a statue of the Virgin Mary, and a bowl of dusty potpourri. A silver cross was set in front with a glass bowl fill with what looked like wooden beads. A man was sitting on the couch, holding a remote control covered in plastic wrap, the weave rug beneath his feet askew. He looked up.

The man said, "Harry," and then, "Who's this?" He was sitting and smiling, the way someone might at a prospective employer or an unruly son's teacher.

"Draco Malfoy."

"Oh? Care to explain?"

Harry's hand went up to his sunglasses again as he turned his head slightly to the side to look at the window. "He's a friend. He'll be helping; that is, if you don't mind."

The man asked sharply, "Are you trying something?"

"He doesn't know yet. I just wanted to make sure first -"

"Make sure what?" Draco asked, pissed off. "What am I doing this time?"

"Do you need somebody to clean up after you or something?"

Harry said, "Something like that." Draco looked at the man, not sure who he was, not impressed. He looked like a man with 2.4 children and 1.7 cars, who rang his dear mum on Sundays.

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

Harry's voice was very clear, matter-of-fact. "Draco, this is Brian Wright."

Draco snapped his head around to look at Harry to see if he was joking. "_The_ Brian Wright?" He reevaluated the man, remembering the newspaper article, half-expecting him to suddenly change into the devil incarnate. He didn't. It was a disappointment - like rewatching a horror film years later, or almost winning the lottery. The person standing in front of him supposedly ran an international drug smuggling ring, and was wanted in most of Europe and North America, for fuck's sake.

Spreading his arms out in an ironic gesture. Wright said, "The very one." Continuing, "What I don't understand is why you would need... _him_, to help. Or anyone." Draco was too tired, still trying to process his surroundings, to be insulted. "I know how you work. You don't like other people around to fuck it up for you, right?"

Carefully, Harry said, "It's different this time."

"Do you need him to hold your hand when you point your wand?"

His words were first measured for their full weight, coming out easily. "It's different with magic. It's better if I have somebody with me."

"Magic," Draco repeated, still trying to understand fully the "Brian Wright" part.

"Yes. Magic."

Wright smiled and ran a finger over a faintly dusty table, looking at his hand. "Quite the clueless one, isn't he?"

"He has his uses."

"I'm sure."

Harry took a package of Silk Cuts from his jacket pocket, and then a lighter, flicking it open with one hand. He silently lit up his cigarette, not bothering to offer one to Draco. He felt a craving hit like a kick to the groin. "Magic? The kind we learned in Hogwarts?"

"The kind where we pull rabbits out of hats, Malfoy."

"Now we've got that over with," Wright said with an amused look at Draco, "can we get down to business?"

Harry shrugged. The room was growing dimmer, the blinds and smoke filtering out the already weak light. Wright's profile was towards the window, like he was trying to see past the plastic. Harry had a different approach.

"Everything is business to me," Harry finally said.

"Good, then." Wright adopted a crisper tone, "There's nothing you shouldn't be able to manage. Cardona will be responsible for the payment and ironing out the details." A pause. "There's something I'd like done right away."

"I'll see to it," Harry said smoothly. Taking a step back, Draco looked for any signs of a criminal in the man standing there, who had probably forgotten to shave, was dressed in a nondescript shade of blue and wearing trainers. There was nothing threatening about him at all - he was used to Voldemort and brooding, violent figures who eventually brought about their own demise.

"Where do I fit in?"

Harry replied, too fast: "The same thing you did for others."

Wright: "And what would that be?"

"Body disposal." Accurate enough.

Draco relaxed a little more, but something was pressing at the back of his mind. Both of them looked at him expectantly; he just stared back, tough face on. Not even that. Just waiting for the confirmation they knew was coming. Draco squinted through the expectations and the smoke and the lies at Brian Wright, the word leaving his mouth, easy like murder. 

"When?"

* * *

Neville wanted two things that morning.

It was still foggy outside, the dampness condensing slowly on the windows of The Leaky Cauldron. She was supposed to have been here over half an hour ago, and Neville checked his watch worriedly. Rubbing a circle on the windowpane clean with his fist, he checked outside for any sign of Parvati. Forty-two minutes now... his breakfast was cold, and congealing into a plate of cooling grease, which was the unfortunate thing about fried food. It never tasted better cold.

Some song by the Teenage Witches was playing but he barely heard it... Forty-three minutes, now... Rita Skeeter, the proprietor of The Leaky Cauldron since last summer, was hurrying out to greet Pansy Parkinson and Terence Boot. For a moment, his attention was arrested as he looked at the passing couple.

Pansy breezed past in an original Gladrags creation worth more galleons than Neville's yearly salary, but he noticed she gripped the strap of her handbag so tightly that her knuckles were pressed white.

"Do we have to be out?" he heard her say in a low voice. Terence whispered something and she nodded, her carefully applied makeup agreeing with the movement of her face; but her body didn't relax.

Forty-five. Green tea, black, jasmine? The Leaky Cauldron, knowing Rita Skeeter, probably served one kind: in a bag. Although couldn't they just magick up some from another storeroom?

"What kinds of tea do you have?" he said, looking up. "I don't think I'm going to-" he stopped in mid-sentence. "Hermione! You look nice," he said truthfully. Her hair was frazzling into its usual self at the ends, but she was wearing well-cut robes and oddly, all her clothing seemed to match.

"So," she said briskly, sitting down. Pansy was looking over their way now; Neville noted. Hermione's back was to her. "How are you?"

"Er- fine. I mean, I'm getting along." He tactfully tried not to ask about her.

"I'm doing great, in case you're wondering," she ploughed ahead. "Just came from a job interview."

"That's great for you." There was that pleased, confident glow she had always had on her good days. It had never changed her ruthlessness, though, he remembered sadly. Neville stared in fascination at his cold bangers and poked one with a fork. He wasn't taking orders from her anymore. Nothing to be intimidated by.

He glanced at his watch. Fifty-one minutes. What he had eaten turned cold in his stomach like he had swallowed frozen butter. Should he owl her? Or would that look bad?

"I think I did well."

"That's great for you."

Hermione was still twitchy, her foot tapping against the table leg as she kept twisting a silver and emerald bracelet around her wrist. "Look, Neville. Just want to, uh -"

He sensed what she was going to say the way he had known when she had wanted him to stay out of her path. "That's okay. You don't have to -"

Just as suddenly as she had appeared, Hermione was standing up and readjusting the hem of her robes. "That's that, then. I'll see you around, Neville."

He nodded and the door was swinging shut behind her. The pub broke into a furious exchange of whispers.

"Hermione Granger..."

"I heard she stole thousands and _thousands_ of Galleons."

"She got sacked, didn't she?"

"Sent straight to the Centaur Department..."

"Terribly sad of course," he heard Pansy saying; her voice had a quality that carried above all the other voices, "but she had it coming. I knew her from school, always the brainy one. Don't you remember, Terence?"

"I heard it was going on for years and _years..._ Right under our noses."

Neville's stomach churned again, this time not from the food. His fault. Should have helped her, eh, Longbottom? That was his job, anyway. Keep her from overwork and drowning in papers.

"Done with your breakfast?" A bony looking girl wearing an embarrassingly frilly uniform had one hand poised to pick up his plate. "You've been here for almost an hour, already, " she added helpfully.

"I know."

"Anything else you'd like?"

Neville looked at the pavement outside, sighed, and resigned himself. "Hot chocolate?"

* * *

The British Ministry of Magic, Magical Law Enforcement, never seemed to take a coffee break.

Or even a bathroom break, for that matter.

Wizards and witches, some with bloodshot eyes, scurried like laboratory mice, holding papers and packages with red _confidentials_ stamped on them. Joanna Southwood stood on an elevated platform, and in rapid, clipped tones ordered, "Hogsmeade, Honeydukes. Three Mediwizards right way." Almost instantaneously, two appeared in the green robes. "Is there another?"

A cheerful poster with the words, "Constant Vigilance," printed on it, accompanied by a twitchy-looking picture of Alastor Moody was pasted above Dennis Creevey's desk.

Dennis picked up his wand from the tabletop; they were enclosed in what could be best described as an office cubicle. "Hullo," he said, smiling a little. "Didn't expect to see you back so soon."

Smithson asked eagerly, "Did you use the watch? Did it work?"

"The weather is making the wards go haywire..."

"Did you get a chance to try out the translator? And what about the watch?" Smithson continued ruthlessly.

"Wait," Ginny said, looking suspiciously at Cho, "We had a _translator_?"

"How was Paris?" Dennis asked. A man tugging an irate house-elf along by the hand pushed rudely past her

"Out of the way... out of the way..."

"Paris was..." Ginny searched for the right adjective, "interesting."

"It was cold. We didn't do any sightseeing, anyway," Cho said firmly. _It was futile and we froze our arses off_, Ginny mentally added. Dennis looked back at Ginny, faintly amused at her less-then-enthusiastic expression.

Ginny asked, "Did everything go through?"

"Yes. I got the owl from Dupont and the powers that be okayed it. You've got the go ahead. Things look pretty serious over there, don't they?" he added casually. Alastor Moody on the poster suddenly raised his wand and shouted, "_Petrificus Totalus_!" Dennis looked back at him fondly. "He never does shut up. Amazing man. Just amazing."

A Mediwizard with bright pink hair replied, "Take that bloody thing down already, Creevey!" before hurrying off to his destination. There was no time for anything except the rapid-fire exchange of insults, and information processed like binary code. The completely organized disarray around them continued on regardless, a group doing last-minute hex deflection practice while Joanna debriefed another batch of Hit Wizards.

"Everything you'll need is in nine-eight-two-five. We can take a visit now, if you like." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "Only five o'clock. Still have a few more minutes before I'm due for a meeting with the Head Bitch," he announced cheerfully. "How about it?"

Sounding slightly amused, Ginny said, "I suppose so." Cho bit her lip and looked away, an inner conflict playing out externally.

Smithson, who had been quiet for a while, spoke up: "I hear they're absolutely fascinating. You used old Muggle machines, right? I saw some of the blue prints, really ingenious stuff, Creevey. Just brilliant. I almost couldn't have thought of those myself."

"Thanks," said Dennis, "but I didn't design them."

"Oh."

"The watch worked fine," Cho added, almost absently. "_Most_ of them weren't lying, though..."

A cold ribbon spiraled around her lower stomach. "He wasn't lying," she echoed. No could _possibly_ lie about something like that... people did, anyway, but Ginny would sooner take up the harp and join a nunnery than lie about Ron.

"And the compressed history of France?"

"Didn't look at it," she snapped. She automatically regretted it. Not being blunt for once wouldn't kill her - it might hurt but it wouldn't _kill_. "We were really busy," she said, trying to soften her words. Dennis pointed his wand towards the stairs.

"Haven't got all day."

"Right, then."

Behind them, Alastor Moody shouted, "_Expecto Patronum!_" and another wizard shouted something rude at the poster. Dennis cheerfully gave him a two-fingered salute.

* * *

Nothing could touch him.

He could control everything. The wand in his hand was an extension of himself, a sixth finger and a third eye. He could feel the purest Malfoy blood that ran through him, exhilarating and insidious as heroin exploding at the base of his neck.

He _knew._ Could feel it. Nothing could go wrong.

Harry stopped the car, the synchronized slam, slam of the doors, breath in his lungs, Harry's feet snapping on the pavement like crisp leaves. His wand against his hip - if he touched it, the magic would leave the tips of his fingers with a whisper. He was hyper-aware of Harry's presence, sharp and defined as lines of black charcoal. Harry's fingers found the zippers of his pockets and his fringe brushed against that scar, (_the mark of a hero)_ his breath vaporizing in the air.

"Got everything?" A car rushed by. The door locks snapped shut with a press. Harry didn't pause and continued walking towards the door. "Get ready."

The doorman sitting in the kiosk was watching a television screen with chesty women in bikinis running on the sand. One arm propped up his head; the buttons on the front of his shirt strained for release. His fingers tapped a random pattern on the counter and he seemed to be half-asleep. A Styrofoam cup and the last crusts of a ham sandwich lay on a napkin.

They walked past without so much as a change in position from the doorman; Harry started to move faster and Draco had to adjust his own pace to a walk, walk, skip to keep up. His vision jerked from one object to the next like a badly shot videotape. He blew on his fingers, which were starting to feel icy.

The hallway was covered in a worn-down green carpet, gray dust and cobwebs collecting in the areas where someone had forgotten to vacuum. There was a faint buzzing in Draco's ears. He was sure there was another law of planetary motion encoded in the paintings. Harry. Walking ahead of him, looking for something. He said, "This shouldn't be too hard," assuring himself of success. "Anybody could do this."

Words came easily. "So why don't you?"

Harry stopped. The buzzing in his ears grew almost unbearable.

"So why don't you?"

He looked at Draco, as if trying to formulate an answer for a grave occasion. There was something like a sigh, only it might have been a door opening. "Because you can," he finally said, turning away again and placing his hands in his pockets, his words as meaningless as always.

To Draco's displeasure, they took the stairs instead of the left, first casting what glamour charms he had remembered from watching Narcissa. Straightening out a nose to aristocratic straightness, remolding the chin, quick taps on the cheekbones... he stood facing a man that looked eerily like his mother - his subconscious had even lightened Harry's hair to a blonde-brown. Shuddering and turning away, he tried to cast the same charms on himself, _Brevis, _and found his hand shaking as he did.

Draco was afraid for a moment that Harry would recognize whom he looked like. Looking at his dimly black reflection in the glass of the stairway door, "Make me any prettier?" was all he said, and Draco wasn't sure if he was relieved, just pushed the thought away and held the railing. It was the first time his confidence had wavered and just as quickly, the cold hit of doubt was gone like the briefest flicker of conscience. Harry touched the new shape of his nose, which only _looked_ different before starting up the stairs.

They passed by only one other person, a young mother holding a baby who was too wrapped up in the price of nappies and scraping together this month's rent to notice them. Draco placed a hand in his pocket to remind himself his wand was still there, flipping through his mental index of spells.

Harry kept looking back at him, making sure of his presence. And Draco looked straight back, trying to figure out what he was thinking until he had to look away first.

"Are we there yet?" Low as possible.

"Almost." Passing by a fire alarm and an abandoned umbrella, Draco was only aware things directly ahead of him like tunnel vision, the peeling paint of the wall, and Harry walking, aware of the sound of his breath and the light bulbs running down the ceiling casting a vaguely green glow. _Because you can._ Harry's back was toward him, hand by the numbers on a door. The "9" was crooked. Harry nodded, and Draco knew what was next.

"_Alohomora._" The sound of cheering, footballers' names being chanted like rock stars or religious figures. 

"I tell you, I'm not going to lose this time... no, _you _listen to me... bollocks, don't give me that again. I don't care if you are. I don't care if you go on national television about it... Sarah doesn't give a damn what I do anymore." It was an impatient male voice, used to getting its own way. "Ring me at four, then. That's the microwave. Yes, I'm watching TV. Bye," he said firmly. The volume rose.

_Like a robbery. Use magic to throw something at his head, knock him out, then trash the flat like you're looking for valuables. That memory charm... Oblivious? Obliviate?_

_Obliviate._

_That. Won't be hard._

The man cursed, setting something down on the table. The rise in volume as a goal was scored was almost exponential.

Harry motioned with a jerk of his chin towards the inside of the flat. Draco walked ahead, wand out now, the corrupted Latin sounding meaningless as a looped song. Harry was behind him, and an undercurrent of the strangeness of their new positions struck him, only he didn't have time to think about it because he getting closer to the man... Should he Obliviate him first and then knock him out or the other way around? Or what if he jumped at him and he didn't have time to do anything? His elbow bumped into the coat rack and it scraped the wall, metal against plaster.

They froze.

"Someone there?"

He could almost hear Harry mentally saying _fuck_.

"Hello?" The volume lowered and the commentator's voice was reduced to a dull monotone. Springs on a couch creaked, a few steps, and then, like a used car giving up, they stopped.

"... and it looks like a good season for Aaron Kelly... if they win this one..." For a moment, he thought the man was walking towards them but the microwave door stopped beeping and there was a low, plastic _click, _a plate clinking against the glass turntable.

Harry said, "Now," like a well-cast _Imperio_.

And then he was stumbling out there. The man, wide gray eyes and hard mouth, going _who the fuck are you_? Draco looking for something to throw. The only thing he could see was the man and the bloody TV set, still on... He still didn't know if he should knock him out and then Obliviate or the other way around, wasn't it the same anyway?

Harry: "Malfoy!"

"But which...?"

"What the fuck are you doing in my-"

"_Obliviate!_"

The man's expression changed to a simple curiosity, looking in bewilderment around him.

Harry was saying something; his heart was having a fit of arrhythmia and Draco licked his lips, wand hand shaking.

"... Kepler takes the ball again. He passes to Hudson..."

Draco focused on the vase gathering dust in the corner. He raised his wand as the man's mouth opened to ask a question. It hovered above the man's head. He looked up at it, like a child wondering why the sky was blue. It fell, hard.

Only when he was looking at the unconscious body sprawled on the sofa, a cooling plate of leftovers set in front of it like a sacrificial offering, did Draco ask, "Who is he?"

Harry, watching the television, said, "Bloke who agreed to testify against him. Wright said he used to be a friend."

His voice was closer, digging into the crevices of his brain and poisoning his blood supply. Looking back at Harry, he wondered how many times he could be a savior. Or why he was even bothering to let himself be saved, considering how much he was paying for it.

He aimed his wand at a chest. The drawers popped open, dumping neatly folded and pressed trousers and collared shirts. The closet door in the hallway flew open with a creak, the coat hangers clicking metallically as they fell, shoes spitting out onto the floor.

Harry took a crisp from the bowl and sat down on the couch, inches away from the still form as Draco finished wreaking havoc. He found a tennis bracelet and a cash box that opened with a quick _Alohomora_, filled with fives, twenties, hundreds, and some pound coins (no such thing as a pound note, any more). He wondered for a second if he _had_ to get rid of it all later. Glancing over at Harry who was impassively looking past the television set, he peeled a few extra off the top and jammed them deep into his pockets. The man on the couch stirred.

"Are you done yet?"

He cast another Memory Charm for good measure before they left.

* * *

A not-quite attractive dancer in a pair of heels and not much else was wrapping herself around the pole, businessmen in their off-time watching as she tossed her hair and gave the audience a not-quite successful come on. Her chest didn't match the rest of her, either. Ginny watched, fascinated by how _bad_ the performance was.

Ginny wondered why Cho had thought up using one of the Ministry's few links to the Muggle world, a private investigator, of all people. "Why him?"

"Just be happy he isn't another Squib rights activist," Cho said. "He doesn't know much about the magical world at all but he helped the Ministry find Farrington in November, I think it was. He has a pretty good grip on the Muggle underworld, though he won't admit it sometimes. Whoever said modesty is a virtue." She rummaged through her knapsack for her map of Muggle London and sat with her back to the dancer. "He's also been giving the Muggle police information on _their_ search..."

"His office is conveniently located," Ginny observed as they took the back door and went up the rickety staircase. She added _and so well kept as well _to that when he opened the door.

She had to clear a frozen dinner package and yesterday's paper from a seat before she sat down. A coffeemaker on the floor was plugged into an overloaded socket with wires trailing out of it like a mockery of Medusa.

He introduced himself as Edwin but barely looked at both of them before collapsing into his seat. Creases cut across his forehead every time he looked upwards, and he seemed to be oblivious to the mess around him.

"How's Blake Farrington?" he asked, his eyes shut like it would take too much effort to open them.

Cho had chosen to stand. "Soulless. He got the Dementor's Kiss after you found him."

The coffeemaker gurgled and Edwin turned his head sideways on his folded arms. "Dementors? What are those? I'm not too familiar with... _your_ kind of thing." His voice sounded black and bitter, but too tired to push any further. His hand reached out onto his desk and blindly searched for something, picked up a half-empty mug and he took a sip. The phone on his desk rang but he ignored it. Humming under his breath, Edwin closed his eyes again as if he was about to take a nap.

"Are you all right?" Ginny asked. "Working overtime a lot?"

"You could say that." With effort, he drew himself up and sat straight in his seat. "Who is it this time? We Moogles always get in your hair, don't we?"

"That's _Muggles_."

"And what am I again? A Squick?"

Cho rubbed her eyes and said, "That's a Squib. And it's Brian Wright."

Edwin blinked and knocked over his mug with his elbow, the brown stain spreading over a bright green flyer on his desk. "What do you want - why -"

"Oh, drop the surprised act," she said icily. "You know about him. You know enough, in fact, to be an informant for the Mu- the police."

"Very well," he said congenially, though a wary look was still in his eyes. "What do you need me for?"

* * *

"Thanks," Harry said abruptly. Draco's fingers tightened on the door handle.

"Hmm," he answered, taking a long drag, cancer filling his lungs and the air. The car slowed down and Draco thought at first it was for a red light, only Harry never stopped for red lights. Realized Harry was looking at him. Had he done something again?

"Thanks. Really," Harry said; suddenly, he was pushed back into his seat as the BMW sped up again.

Not sure how to reply. "You're welcome," was the best he could come up with, trying not to be too sarcastic. "Anybody could've done it," he echoed. Harry's words in his mouth tasted strange, like trying an Indian dish for the first time.

"Anybody," Harry said caustically, "can save the world if they want to."

"That was always your job. Playing hero... I thought you liked it."

Harry said, "I was too young to know better." Adding, "Most people are just too worried about their own arses to bother."

Draco took another drag. It was like smoking his own shit. "Always looked like great fun for you, though... looked like you were living in some bloody comic book. No wonder I couldn't stand you."

"Still jealous, Malfoy?"

He said quietly, "There's nothing to be jealous of."

Purposefully ignoring another red light, Harry drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, the keys hanging from the ignition swaying slightly as he took a left turn. "Where's that arrogance? Gone like all your money?"

He turned away, looking out the window at a Marks and Spencer's, admiring a silver Jaguar pressing past. "I was arrogant?" he said, only half-hearing himself. The radio was back on, static and blips separating the words like badly placed commas. Why didn't Harry change the godawful station?

He might have smiled but it could have been a smirk. "The worst. You've forgotten already?"

"Not surprised, I suppose," Draco said, resigned. "You're..." searching for the right word, "different."

This time, Harry did smile, like Jack the Ripper surveying his handiwork. "I can't deny that one, can I?"

"Why?" he tried. He ran his thumb along the grain of the seatbelt. "I mean, how?"

"What do you mean?" knowing perfectly well, but Draco played along anyway.

"You're not - what happened? At Hogwarts, you were... Harry Potter. Now, you're - "

He shrugged. "People change," as if that explained everything. "Look at yourself."

"But that's different," Draco protested.

"How?"

"I couldn't help it."

"You were the poor fucking little lamb, weren't you? All innocent and pure. Didn't have anything to do with _you_, of course."

"Is it my fault my parents were Death Eaters?"

Harry's face turned stormy and he stared even more intently at the license plate in front of them that read EDDY5. "No," he said shortly. "I suppose not. But you should have seen it coming."

"So you just decided after Hogwarts to become a Muggle again?" Draco asked, willing Harry not to dodge this question.

"Something like that."

Draco waited for more.

"It wasn't even my fault," he continued.

"What wasn't?"

"Ron," Harry spat, like he had tasted spoiled caviar. He looked so angry and raw for the briefest flicker of a moment, the split second between a pull and release of an anonymous trigger.

"If you didn't kill him -"

"Then who did?" Harry laughed, his teeth bared. "Wouldn't everybody love to know." He was silent, then, "You know. You should have." A light rain speckled the windshield and he cracked open the window for some air. Draco picked at the skin at the base of his thumb, until suddenly a bright slice of pain cut across his vision, blood beading red at the base. He blotted it on his sleeve.

"It was like this," Harry started speaking quickly, so quickly Draco had trouble following his train of thought. "I have this here," he placed his fingers up to the scar on his forehead, "from Voldemort. I was the Boy Who Lived. Remember that?" Draco nodded. "Do you remember the time when we dueled in front of everybody in what was it? Second year? Third year? And suddenly, there's a snake on the table. I started talking to it of course..."

The windshield wipers turned on. Harry violently yanked the steering wheel right.

"Voldemort was a Parseltongue, too," he continued, a little quieter. "I wondered, why me? Why did I have to have everything thrown on me? Turns out, he's _in_ me... parts of him. Turns out, he left a lot more than just being able to talk to big snakes. His little parting gift wrapped up in a big, bloody, red bow."

"What do you mean?" He was still trying to decode Harry's words, aware it was just as important as what he didn't say. Draco had always hated puzzles.

"When he tried to kill me, it backfired and some of his powers were given to me. Parts of his personality, too. Nice, isn't it? You know how the Ministry was about obliterating every fucking atom of Voldemort off the face of the Earth. You would have thought they were trying to clean up a uranium leak."

"They obliterated my parents."

"You got away, though."

Draco said, "Is that some sort of achievement?"

Harry shrugged, looking tired and drawn as if all the good parts had been sucked out of him. "At least you got to know them."

He added, "I can _feel_ him sometimes," the blue-hot intensity of words like a burst before he finally collapsed in on himself, a black hole. "He's still there, it's not so bad anymore but there was that one night where it flared up. Ka-bloody-boom. I'd been doing too much. I got stupid. Coke fucks you up that way, has that way of making it like you're in control and you're _not_..."

Draco nearly burned himself trying to light another cigarette. "The Dark Lord lives on, then," he said, the thought of it as far away and surreal as the landscape of a fantasy painting. "Did the Ministry find out?"

Laughing, "After I told them, trying to explain why I killed my best friend, they nearly had epileptic fits. They were all still patting themselves on the back for winning the war, couldn't have seen it coming if it shat on their doorsteps. They couldn't have Voldemort still poisoning their precious wizarding society, any trace of _it_ around... might lead to another war, you see. I could see what they were thinking, and if I didn't do it, they'd eventually make me leave or maybe I'd be in a very convenient accident. Might as well leave on my own terms." Harry looked over at him, and for a moment, Draco caught a glimpse of the old Harry, like looking into a mirror, cobwebbed in cracks. "Are you sorry you asked?"

He said, "No," a half-truth. The effort it had taken Harry to recount most of his life story seemed to have drained him. Asking the first thing that came to his mind, "When are you getting the Mercedes back?"

"In a day or two. I should call them about it, they might have been backed up again."

As if on cue, his mobile rang. Maneuvering through traffic with one hand while he used the other to locate it, he finally snapped it open and held it against his shoulder. "Hello? Oh, great. Glad to hear it," Harry said crisply. "No problems?" After a clipped, rapid-fire exchange, he clipped it back to his belt. "Timothy."

"Him." Almost smiling, "How is he?"

"All right. He hasn't been jailed or castrated yet."

"Why him?" Draco asked, remembering the nervous eyes, the nervous walk, everything. "He's -"

"He's reliable. Doesn't look like it, I know."

"Brian Wright doesn't look like it."

"Reliable?" Harry said casually, adjusting the rearview mirror.

He seemed to actually want an answer, and Draco remembered _who the fuck are you_ and _because you can_. Everybody could. "He's just not what I imagined him to be."

"Is anything?"

"Sometimes... I read about him about in the paper before. He was just so _ordinary_. Like anybody. He might as well have been the postman."

"That's what's so great about him, isn't it?" There was something of admiration in Harry's tone, struggling to keep it light. " You could never guess by looking. Like Fred West, only he doesn't kill little girls."

Draco didn't answer for a few seconds, and then said, "Have you ever been caught?"

The BMW slowed to a crawl as it hit a solid wall of automobiles inching along in traffic. The car in front of them honked angrily as a Renault tried to maneuver its way into a marginally better position.

"I've come close," was all he offered.

* * *

Hermione was usually on time - on time was relative of course, depending on how accurate Niall's watch was running. She had the habit of entering, breathless, at precisely right moment or not arriving at all. To Niall's surprise, she was late today, looking impossibly pleased. It was an expression he hadn't seen since she was fired.

"How'd it go?"

She sat down, brushing the crumbs off the vinyl booth seat first. "Wonderful. They said they'd be owling me soon about another interview. They were even nice about... _that_." Her eyebrows furrowed briefly, biting the inside of her cheek. "Anyway, I think I'm going to get the position. It's not that high up, but after a few promotions, I'll be making near what I used to." She beamed.

"That wonderful, darling." He took her hand under the table, noting her palms were damp. "Nervous?"

"No. Well, a little bit. I have to owl Susan a thank you when we get back."

The smallest piece of worry touched him, feeling the spark when a hand was placed on a metal doorknob, almost inconsequential. "Isn't it a bit early for that?"

"What do you mean?" Her mouth straightened. "Are you saying that I can't get this job? Is that what you're thinking?"

"No, just that it might be a little early..." Niall faltered, then took a sip of his fresh-pressed orange juice that was too pulpy.

She was smiling again, though it looked more forced. "Let's not fight. Is Dennis here yet?"

"Dennis?" He looked at her blankly, his right hand about to use the side of a fork to cut his pie.

"Yes. Is he here yet?"

"What?"

"I didn't tell you?"

"No," Niall confirmed. "Apparently not."

She laughed a little, her teeth flashing briefly. "Oh, I'm so sorry about that. I thought I told you yesterday. I meant to, honestly."

"Why?" He knew he sounded a bit put out. She wasn't taking it seriously at all, her mind still faraway and concentrated on something else, humming beneath her breath. After being accidentally Transfigured into several unpleasant things today at work, his nerves were positively burnt. Being irrational was just a side effect.

"I just forgot. I forget sometimes," she said defensively, leaning back in her seat, hands folded in her lap. "Don't you?"

"Yes, but -" was all he managed. Niall took a vicious gulp of orange juice. It was a stupid thing to go on about, but he had been looking forward to seeing her all day and had been planning to take her to _Ambrosia_ later tonight; he had gotten discounted theater tickets to see _Knockturne_ from work_._ "Which Dennis?" he finally asked in defeat.

"Dennis Creevey. He was in your year when you went to Hogwarts, I think."

He vaguely recalled a lanky boy missing a finger, armed with a camera. "The one with a camera?"

"That's his brother Colin. Although Dennis does take pictures for FWM in his spare time now."

"Is that the magazine where Anthony got his poster of Celestina Warbeck?" Wearing nothing but a Maelstrom Mark Two in a misguided publicity attempt to jump-start her sinking singing career.

"He told me he took that picture. Amazing what some glamour charms can do to aging stars, isn't it?" she added acidly. "She needed a team of wizards to make her presentable before the shoot."

"You can't say she didn't try, though," he said mildly. "Is that him?" He spotted a man with bleached tips in a brown leather jacket, looking around the room like he was searching for somebody.

Hermione waved a hand in the air; he spotted them and trotted over. "Hullo," he said, looking curiously at Niall. "How're you, Hermione?"

"Great, fine. This is Niall. Niall, this is Dennis Creevey."

Dennis's eyes lit up with recognition. "Hey, aren't you the bloke who works in Experimental Magic? Worked with Smithson a few months back?"

"That's me," Niall said warily, wondering what else Dennis had remembered that might not have been as flattering. "Are you a photographer for FWM?" He almost clapped a hand over his mouth and Hermione looked furious. _Honestly_, she mouthed.   


Dennis just laughed and sat down. "That's me." A waiter zoomed over at an alarming speed and he ordered the lunch special, "Whatever it is," he said recklessly. "You saw the Celestina Warbeck spread?"

Hermione spun a bracelet around her wrist, looking at the tablecloth like she wanted to burn it. Niall quickly changed the subject. "What else do you do?"

"Top secret things at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." His words were light, but something warned him not to press it any further.

"Oh."

Hermione reached over the table and took a drink from Niall's orange juice. "Excuse me," she said. "I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back."

Dennis smiled, almost at no one in particular, and took Niall's hand. He seemed to be looking at his fingers. "Haven't tied the knot yet?"

Read? Review!

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**Lengthy Author's Notes: **Edwin said, "Haven't seen you since Farrington," in chapter one to Harry which is brought up by Cho in this chapter. FWM is a play on FHM, a men's magazine. (Translated: booze and breasts) The Teenage Witches is/was a group of fanficcers whose Draco Dexter was good fun. There's no football in winter, but I'm assuming it's a repeat of great matches. Celestina Warbeck was inspired by Tiffany, an 80's pop star who posed in Playboy for publicity. Joanna Southwood was a jewel thief in Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie who makes a short cameo here; there's also a parallel in the Neville scene with a couple from that book. The room in which Harry and Draco meet Mr. Wright is based on my friend's living room. Hermione sort of acts like Hermione. Since I bring back so many chapter one elements, I'll add in that red is a color. We're at the beginning of the [short] end!

Thank you to Kate, Pogrebin, and Siria for braving the unedited waters. A thank you to Ewa a.k.a. Neverhere for helping with the doorman and supplying the idea of watching reruns of _Baywatch_ while on the job. The Gentleman is responsible for any mentions of cancer. (here's your plug, Gent) Aleph explained strip clubs to me. And very importantly, Ursula for the Why Harry Killed Ron theory which I am eternally grateful for. I occasionally make fic updates in my livejournal and you can receive email updates (though I owl reviewers, anyway) by way of the yahoo group. Love, kisses, and slashy subtext to you all.

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